Re: Where does merlyn get all the altruism???

[astaines]

in reply to Where does merlyn get all the altruism???

I'm a researcher, and we have similar issues around people asking endless repetitive questions about research methodology. The ethos in scientific work is quite similar in some ways to the open-source ethos. I don't know if there's a historical link between the two, but I suspect that there is. Both have common origins in universities.

I am awestruck by the patience and courtesy, shown, both to my questions, and to the questions of others. I have learnt a lot on the various e-mail lists, and from sites like this. Even saying look here, can be immensely helpful to the inexperienced, as we often don't know where to look.

Anyway merlyn is a phenomenon, and I appreciate him!

-- Anthony Staines

[Boldra]

For more about the open-source ethos and it's history, I strongly recommend Eric S Raymond's 1998 paper Homesteading the noosphere. Chapter 17 touches specifically on the relationship between open-source and academic cultures.

- Boldra

[Rich36]

This is actually along the same lines of what I've been thinking about as I visit this site. I'm very impressed with not only the knowledge of those who visit this site, but their willingness to share it generously... I'm also impressed with the speed that the questions get answered. I've submitted questions, hit "refresh", and three different answers to my question will be there...

Not only that, just looking through the code, snippets, reviews, tutorials, etc. have been great for my development as a Perl coder. For all the issues that have come up in my Perl work, 95% of them get answered just by running a search and looking through the information that comes up.

This is a great site. It keeps me excited about learning this stuff.

Rich36