I would guestimate that somewhere between 70-90% of it's use is for CGI scripting,

It just seems higher because CGI is much more complex than it first appears, and is usually undertaken by people who are light-duty or non- programmers, and therefore show up more in forums trying to get help.

But many people I know have been hacking Perl heavily for years and have never even put up their first CGI program.

Of course, "how do I access a DB?" is a question that is valid whether or not you're in a CGI space, so maybe you've miscategorized some questions. {shrug}

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

I'll take your word on it with the years of experience that you've had in perl'ing. But I think the statement that I was trying to make, that most of the questions that we are asked in SoPW/Q&A, are "uninteresting" or "unchallenging" as they seem to represent uses of perl that a majority of perl programmers are involved, and thus already should have a good base of knowledge to go on (eg FAQs, USENET, PM archives). Looking at the current front page of SoPW, there's only 1 out of 10 questions that I would consider to be 'challenging' to find the answer for, in that I would expect to learn something new when helping this user out; the rest I can answer with basic knowledge.

And that is the atrophy that the original thread here to aiming at; there's too many 'uninteresting' yet still useful questions being asked that doesn't help those on the high end of the XP scale. I have no problem answering the uninteresting questions, as long as I have the oppurtunity to learn from others on more advanced questions, and while I still find that this is happening for me, I can see how others a bit more advanced in perl would find the lack of new knowledge deterimental to the PM experience. Which is why I think having Articles aimed beyond the beginning user would be a perfect addition to beat the PM atrophy.

---

Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain

Translating it to something here, I would add a new section "articles", with general topics (eg "network sockets programming", "threaded processes") offered up for suggestion, and any monk wishing to write an article may do so. The topic suggestions should be limited to only higher level monks (6th or above?) to avoid having topic pollution ala Q&A/SoPW duplication. "Articles" can be as fundamental as a tutorial, or robust as pure example code with commenting, but it ought to end up being a combination of prose and code so that a message on how to improve ones programming is taught. Which means the message shouldn't be spoonfeed, but nor should it be so vague as "simply read the POD for everything you need".

I really like this idea. Additionally, I like converter's idea of a Perl Puzzlers book. On dalnet #perl, we have a wonderful user (who I do not think frequents this site) named PerlCure. He does something I have yet to see anywhere else: He makes quizzes for the above-average-but-not-stellar perlmongers present. For example:

<purl> quiz ?
[ sound of cheers from #perl crowd ]
<purl> quiz -->
<purl> BEGIN{ local $@; my $f = 0; 2/$f } print "Done"
<purl> bug or feature ?
[download]

This sort of thing is interesting, but we could also, like Masem pointed out, have actual articles attached to this. I get something akin to this on the fun-with-perl list at least twice a week. We get golf, but we also get very interesting and informative questions such as:

I hope abigail doesnt mind the repost...

Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 20:40:16 +0200
From: abigail@foad.org
To: fwp@technofile.org
Subject: [FWP] So, you think you know Perl?

Your exercise for today:

   1) Predict what
          echo "" | perl -ple 'print q'
      does.

   2) Run the above command and compare it with your prediction.

   3) Explain any differences.


Abigail
[download]

Folks, these are the kinds of things that get me excited about perl, and make me interested in a new function I dont use or underuse, or use in a different way. I get a ton of innovation out of just little things like that. But we dont really see these too often on PM except for in ob-fu. Which is fun... but useless in terms of my really growing as a programmer. Well, almost useless.

Masem is right. Articles are a great idea. I dont think I'm qualified to make an article, though I'm happy to try. Perhaps we could have a Quest first to see what articles are wanted, and then, as Masem suggested, have articles submitted. Gee, that almost makes us a periodical. (This particular reason is why I subscribed to <sniff> TPJ)

One other note here, tilly suggested I go have a look at Dominus' website, which is excellent. I suggest that for anyone interested in learning more about perl.

I am still very interested in seeing what people have to say about this thread, and I'm glad to see what people have had to say thus far. I think the response is mostly uniform. People would like to see more intermediate-upper level content, as a lot of us have moved past the beginning and even intermediate levels of perl programming and are looking to transcend just hackerdom.

yours as always,
brother dep.

--
Laziness, Impatience, Hubris, and Generosity.

I dont think I'm qualified to make an article, though I'm happy to try.

I would think that anyone on PM that considers themselves to be a non-perl-newbie (say, over level 4), has the ability to write a good article. You may not have the stuff to write something as easily readible as merlyn or chromatic or our other published monks, but you probably know something they don't, and that's what my Articles idea is all about. And if the first time you write something, the article doesn't jive well, just simply use any comments you get on it to improve the next one that you write; given that PM is a friendly community, you should not have to fear rejection or humiliation for writing a poor article. And writing such articles could only improve your own writing skills for your career.

Mind you, we don't need Articles to be come Ms. Slorovski's 3rd grade English class, but I'm sure that this will not happen...

---

Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain