Perl is simple to use but difficult to master. This provides for a huge cross section of learning curve over which to communicate.

This forum is firmly rooted in perl culture and supported a large base of code this is actually useful.

People who post here are mostly helpful even when the questions are obviously taken from homework. Many of them are not just users of perl but developers who care about the community. New users seem to find a way to help each other here.

New users get gentle advice and grizzled old veterans are (mostly) friends here.

I used this forum for a long time before posting anything. The XP system certainly rewards participation but is not the reason for success here. In fact, for some reason I find my connectivity sometimes very slow to perlmonks.org. I return for the reasons above.