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Re: Bestowing blessings upon monks?

by jdporter (Paladin)
on Mar 01, 2003 at 16:02 UTC ( [id://239711]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Bestowing blessings upon monks?

...to send a small blessing of perhaps two or three XP...
...higher level monks have the ability to bless/curse users...
I sympathize, but I am against the proposal.
What it would mean is that some users' opinions are "worth" more than others, and that's the kind of class system PerlMonks does not need.
Also, I think it's the monks at the higher levels who tend more to believe in the unimportance of XP. And it's true - XP are pretty meaningless. I'd much rather have someone reply to my posting with "That was brilliant!" or "You saved my ass", than to get another XP or two. If a node really is worthy, it'll generate XP for the author anyway.

jdporter
The 6th Rule of Perl Club is -- There is no Rule #6.

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Re: Re: Bestowing blessings upon monks?
by logan (Curate) on Mar 02, 2003 at 19:44 UTC
    What it would mean is that some users' opinions are "worth" more than others

    Well, aren't they? Without casting aspertions on their worth as people, which would mean more to you, an "Wow, I never thought of that. Nicely done" from Merlyn or Sickboy? Some user's opinions ARE worth more, either because they have more experience with Perl, or they have a better bead on what the Monastary is and how it works.

    If you troll around the bottom of the XP chart, you'll find something odd: monks who seem to know a great deal about perl, but just don't blend. It reminds me of a manager I had a few years back. He was brilliant, had great skills and tons of experience, but his social skills were so lacking that he drove his entire team away. No one wanted to work with him, and in the end, his childish arrogance cost him his job.

    Whe we're typing code into the machine, it doesn't matter how hard we hit the keys or what the semantic values of our variable names connote, because the machine has no feelings. In the real world, however, how the message is delivered is at least as important as the message itself. Consider these replies to a hypothetical question about split:

    • Jesus, you didn't put much effort into this, did you? If you'd read perldoc, you'd see that when called in scalar context, split returns the number of fields found, not their values. Now, next time you have a question, RTFM before bothering us.
    • From perldoc: In scalar context, returns the number of fields found and splits into the @_ array. Use of split in scalar context is deprecated, however, because it clobbers your subroutine arguments.
    • Here's the trouble: you're calling split in scalar context, so it's returning the number of fields, not the values of the fields. Try this:
      @fields = split $line;

    You tell me, monks. Which response deserves the most votes? All three give the same information, but in three different ways. Which one is going to help grow the Monastary and add to the community? Which one will leave someone pissed off and unlikely to return?

    Seems to me that giving Monks at Level 7+ one "Bless" per day that's worth 2-5 votes could help promote the best nodes, and rid us of the worst. Plus, limiting it to the highest levels will insure that only monks who've put in the time and effort to build the Monastary will have access to the extra power.

    -Logan
    "What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."

      Well, aren't they?
      Which would mean more to you: a "Wow, I never thought of that. Nicely done" from Merlyn or Sickboy?
      No, as a matter of fact, they aren't different in value.
      Sure, it can be a big thrill to receive "nicely done" from merlyn. But I think it is at least as gratifying to receive heart-felt thanks from someone you've helped get through a sticky programming problem or discover an aspect of perl power they've never seen before.

      In fact, if you want to earn beaucoup XP, you'd be much better off writing for the latter kind of reward than for the former.

      jdporter
      The 6th Rule of Perl Club is -- There is no Rule #6.

        Again, I disagree. The source of the compliment matters. I appreciate a thank you, no matter what the source. If my code helps someone, and they're grateful, I'm pleased. However, if someone who is a widely recognized expert in the field compliments me on my code...wow!

        Check the front page. Every day, there's a post by Anonymous Monk with a newbie question. To AN, our mastery of  shift and $_ are pure magic. I'm glad I can help our SofPW, but it ends there.

        Now, if somehow, I was able to come up with a regular expression that, say, matched all valid IP addresses in 10 characters, and Merlyn made a point of complimenting on me, I'd be on the moon! Here's a guy who not only makes a living with perl, but makes a living writing and lecturing on perl, and he's impressed by something I did? I'm on top of the world!

        I cannot, however, get the same warm fuzzy from pointing out a dropped bracket in someone's first script.

        -Logan
        "What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."

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