I fit all of those, so I guess I must agree ;). As per the strategy games, don't forget Go, an ancient chinese game that can take literally forever and taxes the mind incredibly.

Also, in response to the original post, while I like to think that I brought a good deal of logical thinking to the field when I learned Perl, I often find myself solving problems in my head in Perl (not just coding problems). After long enough, you begin to think in Perl as you do in your native language.

5 Outta 6 ain't bad...

I use ASP w/VBscript for about half of my job... you know, the BAD days...

Goedel Escher & Bach.... The turtle was cool. (But really, if he was going for the entire Lewis Carrol thing, couldn't the stories actually have shed some light on the damn situation??)

And more than chess or go, try ADOM - venturing into a dungeon with no save games?? Now that's strategy.

Traits of a VB programmer:

• Enjoys strategy games - Minesweeper, hearts, solitaire
• Probably has read "Harry Potter" - and only understands 20% of it.
• An interest in Music - Well, downloading pics of Brittney in a tube top
• A love of learning whenever they need an undocumented class
• A love of logic problems - They create them every time they write code
• Chronic Masturbation - Oops! That's perl programmers again...

~Hammy
"MOD down Zig for great justice"

I totally agree. I fit all of those including this summer my job was perl. The book is great i love the MU problem but i dont understand the rest of the book for the most part. I feel that perl has changed the way i code in that i am much more free flowing and artistic. I see more of the vision behind coding instead of the schmantics of everything and i see the code as beautiful. I feel that perl is the true essance of the Tao Of Programming. And it has brought me closer to having the foo!! thedude

I don't know about alot of that, but I do know that Perl allowed me to ( literally ) come down out of the woods, put away my axes and chisels ( tools of the trade when you build log houses for a living ) and slide right into a coding job without feeling like my day to day tasks have changed. Shaping wood and coding Perl are just about the same.

With raw materials and simple, time-tested tools most anything is possible.

I might also add that if either the raw materials ( large data stores || large, rough timber ) or tools ( Perl || Axes, chisels, chainsaws ) are not handled with the proper respect, the materials may crush you and the tools will tear you to shreds!

Let's see... I read 80% of GEand bach and understood 10% of it. I read it a long time ago so I forgot most of what I thought I understood at the time. Been playing fiddle/banjo for a long time, #3 generally true, not big on adventure games. close enough.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like banannas

As for what "type of hacker" I am... well, I'm about to turn 21 (Nov. 9th), I'm a college student, a Fraternity brother, and a social guy. I hack for fun (and profit), and give advice here and on DALnet in my spare time. I'm not a malicious hacker. I am disciplined (as my posts here and my ramblings on IRC would show), and try to convince others to become disciplined.

On a somewhat religious note (oh, I'm not atheist -- I understand there's a stereotype that computer science people are atheists... Larry's not! And I'm Roman Catholic.), the words "discipline" and "disciple" have the same root (Latin discipulus). By being a disciplined Perl programmer, I am, more or less, a disciple of the "Perl Order", or what-have-you. And I try to convert the curious to this order as well.

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area)
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

has the code changed me forever?

rdfield

The code changes all perl programmers forever. Personally, perl has forced me to look more into the logic of statements, and the underlying 'code beneath them.' This has rekindled a love of philosophy I had years before, when I didn't understand what was actually being said, but was entranced by the concepts dancing in front of my eyes. The concepts can now be broken down, thanks to greater logical ability, and this greater scrutiny has made my work more inciteful in school according to my teachers. (many of them who I've had for more than a year have remarked about the change in my thought process.)

Although perl is supposed to conform itself to you, and allow itself to become intuitive, in many ways we're forced to conform ourselves to the perl community, and its sense of logic.
Gyan Kapur
gyan.kapur@rhhllp.com

Scary that I resemble so many of the descriptions as I despise fitting any stereotype. I don't get to code in Perl often but everytime it's the right tool I find myself enjoying my work more than with other tools. For me Perl keeps the door open to what computers can be for people instead of what they must be for corporations. It's proof that creativity and imagination are the true binary limitations

In many ways for me Perl (and Perlmonks) keeps hope alive.