I disagree. I'm not going to explain every function or module I use. Then it takes me hours to answer some questions. That's what the TFM is for. If you ask a question, get an answer which uses function foo you don't know about, is it too much to ask to spend a few seconds typing perldoc -f foo in a different window? Should authors really cut and paste the documentation for every question they answer, just because the asker of the question might be a newbie? (How do you know? Do they smell different?)

As for 

    $string =~ s/\s+/ /g;

[download]
I fail to see what the problem is with that. If there are parts in the code the reader doesn't understand, (s)he can look it up. Now the excuse of "I don't know what to look up" doesn't hold.

One last thing. You mentioned the infamous baby code. Is there an official piece of documentation that lists what's part of baby code and what isn't? Because only then, one can answer in baby code. Or does every one has his/her own baby code, which just happens to be the set of constructs the person knows about? Perhaps everyone signing on for Perlmonks could fill out a form with 2500 tickboxes, marking all the commands and constructs they know about, making that their own private baby code. Then people can study those sets and adjust their answer. Keep in mind that people are learning, so you would have to force them to update their pages at least weekly, but preferably daily.

BTW, don't you think showing people constructs or functions they haven't heard of before is the best way to get them out of the baby code stage, and into the world of full Perl enjoyment?

-- Abigail

In reply to Re: Writing answers for newbie questions by Abigail
in thread Writing answers for newbie questions by cLive ;-)

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