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How I Learned to Stop Lurking and Love the perlmonks (and actually post something)

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Lurkers of perlmonks Unite! You have nothing to lose but your anonymity.

I have been a member of the monastery for two years now, and have not posted once. I have gone from having never heard of Perl two years ago to building an order entry system in object oriented Perl over the last few months (using wxPerl and Class::DBI, both awesome modules).

This is due in a large part to perlmonks and its wonderful occupants (thanks are also due to TheDamian for his excellent book Object Oriented Perl (the one Perl book I own) and the Chapters bookstore chain where I have perused many Perl books I do not own for monetary reasons (ie the lack thereof)).

So I am in the position of having benefited very much from the perlmonks community while not giving very much back. I have tried to be a somewhat active member of perlmonks by voting but I have never posted anything. This was initially due to my lack of knowledge which kept me from trying to answer or respond to any posts and my fear of asking a question that would provoke the dreaded RTFM. As a result I have grown quite adept at using perldoc and searching perlmonks to find the answers to the questions I have had.

One question I could never find an answer to is how best to give back to this community that has helped me grow so much. I am still reluctant to post answers to questions, because I know there are monks that will respond with a more informed and accurate response than I could give (and perhaps chastise me for providing a poor answer). I have realized that it comes down to the fear of being wrong (and/or looking the fool) that has kept me from posting. But this ensures that my growth will stop until I start to challenge what I think I know about Perl (and programming in general) and risk being completely wrong.

So I have a question for any former lurkers out there, how did you go about making the transition to active vocal member of the community?

Finally, a big Thank You to all the members of perlmonks. This community is an excellent source of knowledge, insight, and humour.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt – Voltaire

I want to know if I am a fool, maybe I can do something about it - me

In reply to On Two Years of Silence... by tunaboy

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