First of all, this isn't yet another harangue about stupid user names or Chatterbox pranks.

I recently had the chance to look over some of a colleague's Perl code. It was nasty -- thousands of lines of code and maybe twenty lines of subroutines, poorly chosen variable names, inconsistent coding style... the list goes on and on. Problem is, I wasn't the designated code reviewer, and I would have felt awkward (not to mention rude) had I simply confronted him with my opinion: "Dude, your code sucks."

Instead, I suggested that he register an account on Perl Monks.

And why not? When I started here, I had a functioning grasp of the language, but fsck-all idea of how to write decent (much less elegant) Perl code. I have since improved by several orders of magnitude, in no small part thanks to this site. There's no reason to expect that our combination of expert knowledge and newbie-friendliness won't help him just as much.

Just another way to respond the next time you run across some atrocious Perl code....

--
F o x t r o t U n i f o r m
Found a typo in this node? /msg me
The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!

Edited: ~Mon Sep 16 16:45:24 2002 (GMT) by footpad: Moved to Meditations, per Consideration.