Hello, I have been lurking on this list for a few months, and I thought perhaps you'd all like the perspective of a 'newbie' about this issue.
First, some background - I'm a long-time programmer, primarily in java, secondarily in PHP and shell script. I have started working with a new team who uses perl, so I've had to learn it - from them, from books/tutorials, from this list, and by just writing it. I spent a bunch of time with online tutorials and books before really getting started, so most of my interest in this list is about "real-life examples of perl" rather than "learning to program". For my point of view: I find this list to be like most 'beginners' lists I've seen - 20% filled with homework questions, 60% filled with real questions with very helpful answers, and 20% filled with bickering about religious wars (about perl, about response-style, about email formatting, etc.) I honestly think that mix is normal and indicates that the list is basically healthy, so I live with the 40% that isn't useful to me, because the 60% is so useful. (Plus the 'mute' feature of gmail is great!) In regards to Shlomi and his approach to the emails - he posts a lot. Most of it is timely, accurate, and helpful. Even before this thread, I had a real sense that he was keeping the list quality high - even if a small part of his content is about religious wars. I don't mind the links to perl-begin at all - perl-begin has been a great resource for me. I thought this post about contributing to open source was off-topic, and I'm glad someone pointed that out - but I think his personal signal/noise ratio is high, and I think that discouraging him from posting isn't good for the list. In general, it seems like people on this list seem to be very responsive, but often are rather harsh about email formatting and such, while being somewhat mild about people asking the list to do their job/homework for them. That has always seemed backwards to me :) I don't always agree with the answers/advice about the religious wars - but I think it's important for all new netizens/programmers to learn how to spot religious issues, so I don't feel it's necessary to jump in. In any case - this list has been good for me, and I really appreciate all the contributors who have helped make it that way - with Shlomi at the top of that list. Thank you! Nathan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
