Why I keep coming back

So I have been out of the Perl Monks loop for a while, I login to lurk a bit, but nothing else really. This is mostly due to the fact that I have not been coding as much as of late, in Perl, or any other language for that matter.

So when it came time for me to write a small tool using LWP, with SSL, and cookies, and all the stuff associated with it, I started to RTFM. I had never really used LWP much, nor any of the HTML parsing modules, and when I ran into gotchas...well I came straight here, did a couple super searches, grabbed a couple of the tutorials, and spammed a quick question to chatterbox when the first 2 failed on one specific topic.

Well even the chatterbox question didn't give me the answer, but it DID push me towards the right answer. End result: 20 minutes later after coding, testing, etc, I had a working prototype, and most important, the stumbling blocks were removed.

The real point of this rambling (hardly worthy of the term Meditation) is recognition and appreciation of all those who give of their free time to maintain, improve, and support this plethora of information and meeting place, as well as those dedicated Monks who spend thier free time helping and answering questions, even if it is just a "Well, you might want to check here...they might have something" that pushes you towards your goal (in fact that is preferable to me as I actually learn more resources, and many times just learn more by having to figure it out myself).

So Thank You! to all of you who make this community what it is, and for tolerating and helping those of us who lurk and just drop back every once in a while for some help.

Update: See, even on this node Jenda pointed out a spelling mistake for my ESL self :) Fixed.

"Nothing is sure but death and taxes" I say combine the two and its death to all taxes!

Comment on Why I keep coming back

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Why I keep coming back by Callum (Chaplain) on Apr 13, 2004 at 09:03 UTC
For me one of the key strengths of PM is the breadth of experience that can be found here -- just as there's almost always a module on CPAN that covers what you want to do, there's also almost always a monk here who's done it themselves.	[reply]
Re: Why I keep coming back by flyingmoose (Priest) on Apr 13, 2004 at 15:40 UTC
I read this forum to keep being exposed to randomness. Ok, that sounds strange, but if you do the same thing all the time you get stuck in a rut. It's nice to see what other people are working on, what problems they have, and so on. Occasionally I have a response, and less occcasionally I might have a question, but in all, it's a good way to keep up with things. I wish other languages had forums as good as this. Sun seems to have a lot of Indian Outsourcers looking for an education from layed off americans, IMHO, and that just rubs me the wrong way. People here want to learn, not get handouts, and I admire that. On the downside, one complaint I do have about PerlMonks is often people take this forum waaaaaaaaay too seriously, and that can make one feel he has to reread his post 5 times over so he won't make a mistake, or wonder if Monk12345 will take him to task for thinking differently. I see a lot of people feeling like they have to strike through their posts and apologize a lot. This has made me want to leave on occasion. But in all, it's a decent place, and it's very exciting to see what many folks are doing here. I learn stuff here so much more than other web sites I visit (even technical ones), and that says a lot about the quality of content at PerlMonks.	[reply]
Re: Re: Why I keep coming back by Aragorn (Curate) on Apr 13, 2004 at 20:31 UTC
...one complaint I do have about PerlMonks is often people take this forum waaaaaaaaay too seriously, and that can make one feel he has to reread his post 5 times over so he won't make a mistake, or wonder if Monk12345 will take him to task for thinking differently. I see a lot of people feeling like they have to strike through their posts and apologize a lot. Maybe that has something to do with wanting to be technically accurate. I can only speak for myself, but when I make a mistake, which someone else points out to me, I'd like to correct my post so that it's accurate. I take this forum seriously because I've learned a lot from it and think it's a valuable Perl resource. Most of the stuff is pretty high-quality, and the PM community regulates itself very nicely. The desire to produce something high-quality, which a lot of the people here have, deserves to be treated seriously. Maybe some people take it to extremes, but for me, that's not a reason to leave and it adds to the quality of the information offered here. Ok, maybe I took you comment a bit too seriously ;-) Arjen	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Why I keep coming back by flyingmoose (Priest) on Apr 14, 2004 at 04:26 UTC
I think I was commenting on the feeling that expressing of opinion is sometimes met with a minor flamewar...I definitely like factual inaccuracies to be pointed out, but I usually don't like to see it when people say a certain opinion is flat-out-wrong. But that is something we can all work on. As another exmaple, if I make a silly example about veeblefritzers, I'm likely to be chastized (sp?) for not writing a solution that could be easily extended into a solution of umplefroozen, (some people feel the need to flex their argumentative or nit-picky software design muscles too much) so I often feel I have to end every post with 30 disclaimers explaining what I am or am not doing. But now I'm talking myself too seriously :)	[reply]
it's all about TIMTOWTDI by zetetes (Pilgrim) on Apr 14, 2004 at 22:36 UTC
Re: Why I keep coming back by QwertyD (Pilgrim) on Apr 13, 2004 at 22:46 UTC
This expresses my sentiments about Perl Monks exactly. But Perl Monks isn't just about Perl. I've absorbed more computer science here than from any single book or course. Perl Monks is a mix of people; from those who (have created\|are creating) Perl to computer scientists to those who have years of Perl experience behind them to those who have a specific problem they need help with to those who are just beginning to learn Perl. (And one person often falls multiple categories.) People ask questions and share their expertise, and everyone benefits and learns. Thank you to everyone who makes this ~~site~~ community what it is. Once it's Turing complete, everything else is just syntactic sugar.	[reply]
Re: Why I keep coming back by crabbdean (Pilgrim) on Apr 13, 2004 at 20:33 UTC
I'll give my vote on this and add my bits. I've only been programming for a year or so and only onto this site for the past few months and find myself constantly coming back to this site. Being the "determined perfectionist that loves a challenge" type person I'll sometimes spent days on a single line or two of code if its not working. I've found since coming across this site I can often drop a quick message in the chatterbox or if I feel its notable to remain in 'history' I'll post a node. I've always been impressed at how quickly I get an answer. Like yourself I often love the answers that say "Maybe you should try looking here". It enables me to find or look in a direction hadn't thought of OR more importantly didn't even know about looking into. From there I know I'll work the rest out myself and often like the challenge of working the rest out myself. The skill of mentally flexing the brain is one I think is good to keep fit and healthy. All in all though I've found the quickness of the responses around here from people has reduced those endless days of hammering through one or two broken lines of code down to a simple 15 minutes of downtime until I on the HOT trail of a solution. So likewise a BIG thank you to all you fellow monks out there. A fantastic resource this place is. Dean The Funkster of Mirth Programming these days takes more than a lone avenger with a compiler. - sam RFC1149: A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers	[reply]
Re: Why I keep coming back by hannibal (Scribe) on Apr 15, 2004 at 14:31 UTC
Don't you just hate it when you read a post, start thinking of a reply, and then read the current replies and everyone has already said what you wanted to say? That's the case here for me. I don't post very often but I read PM all the time, and I love it. I love reading what other people do, lots of stuff about Perl, and programming in general. There is a good sense of community here as well. All these things keep me coming back for more. I even had someone wish me happy birthday recently and notice I hadn't logged in for a couple of weeks (oops). That made me want to update my homenode, so I did. Now if I can just motivate myself to post more. :)	[reply]


go ahead... be a heretic
	PerlMonks