Something that may make an interesting node.
Newbies need projects to work on. I'm pretty lucky because there is no end to the amount
of fixing I have to do at my job.

Some beginners aren't as fortunate(I can say that with a straight face).
Maybe an area where everyone can propose a project and agree on an outline
and beginners can discuss their progress.
Or base the project using certain aspects of perl.
"Come up with a way to do this with regular expressions..."
Maybe even impose time limits. Nothing drastic. Like one week or two weeks
I don't have the thought completed.
Maybe someone else has some ideas about this.

<var>Does it sound like a good idea?</var>

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: Newbies + projects (kudra: welcome to my todo list)
by kudra (Vicar) on Apr 18, 2000 at 16:58 UTC
    I think this'd be interesting, although I'm yet another person too busy with work to participate.

    And if there's someone out there who does have time to participate in something like this, I kindly offer all the programs on my 'todo' list as fodder. It's for your sake, yeah, that's it... ;)

[reply]
RE: Newbies + projects
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Apr 16, 2000 at 00:26 UTC
    You mean something like "Exercises for Perl Novices"? That's a good idea. There could be things like:
    • Write a regexp to match this type of data
    • Solve this problem using split, or grep, or map
    • Find the logic error in this code
    and so on.

    One thing that would be nice is not having answers displayed on the same page as the question, so as not to spoil it for them. Very interesting.

[reply]
      We could rate each one by difficulty, so they wouldn't necessarily have to be for newbies. We could have questions for beginners, intermediate perlgeeks, and experts (which could be more akin to a "puzzler").

      Only problem is that it would have to be fairly heavily moderated...

[reply]
        I like the idea of it being more like a quiz/puzzler.
        What about a contest for exp. points. Depending on the level
        and some key focus. Maybe even bonus.
        The way it sounds right now it does seem like it will need heavy
        moderation.

        Maybe it could be a priviledge of users of a certain level.
        They could have their own discussion or maybe a vote would be beter.
        Each user could submit one with their (working) solution.
        Then a vote on them. Highest one wins. Points awarded to the winner!
        That eliminates <var>some</var> of the moderation <var>(I think)</var>.

        So. How about a trial run? I'm not anxious or anything. :)
[reply]
RE: Newbies + projects
by Simplicus (Monk) on Apr 17, 2000 at 18:59 UTC
    I think this is a great idea. I have plenty to keep me busy, too . . .but I also find that much that I do falls into tidy little boxes, and to develop new skills it would be useful to have outside challenges. perhaps correct solutions under time limits could be granted exp points? But even if not, the techniques learned would be most valuable to a newbie like myself. S
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Re: Newbies + projects
by nuff (Initiate) on Oct 23, 2001 at 12:33 UTC
    i think that this would be an invaluable area. At the moment I'm trying to learn perl from books and web sites but it can be a little frustrating when there is no goal (apart from learning). Its just the thing i need. Bring it on!
[reply]
RE: Newbies + projects
by bluesphx (Initiate) on Apr 18, 2000 at 04:07 UTC
    I think that that would be a great idea. I'm a newbie and i think that it would be a great oppotunity to help build my skills and help/get help other people.
[reply]

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