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1st Monasterians

by Erudil (Prior)
on Mar 06, 2002 at 13:23 UTC ( [id://149675]=perlmeditation: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

The First Letter of Erudil
to the Monasterians
1Erudil, a hacker of Perl,

To Vroom, the saints, and all the dwellers of the Monastery:

2Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.

3It is now a little more than two years since I joined this community of believers in Perl, and my appreciation of this place and its custodians and members continues to grow.

4Brothers and sisters, I beseech you to continue fighting the good fight, showing patience and understanding to those who come to the gates of our blessed Monastery, bereft of clues and ignorant of our ways. 5Do not rebuke them with harsh words such as "RTFM", but rather lead them gently - with URLs - so that they may learn wisdom. 6Suffer the newbies to come unto us, instructing them of the many truths contained within the good book. 7For who among us has never been in a state of error or ignorance?

8Consider carefully the following:
9Blessed are they that "use strict;",
for their typos shall be caught before trouble arises.
10Blessed are they that use "-w",
for Perl itself shall show them the error of their ways.
11Blessed are they that "use CGI;",
for their parameters shall be passed without error.
12Blessed are they that use CPAN,
for exceedingly large shall be the number of wheels that they do not re-invent.

13Blessed are they that understand regexs,
for they shall waste no time trying to parse HTML.
14Blessed are you, when "they" insult you and ridicule you, and speak all manner of evil against you for using Perl,
for great will be your reward when your project is finished in less time, and with less effort.

15If there are those who refuse to accept our wonderful message, do not allow them to draw you into a fruitless flame war, and thereby bring disrepute upon yourselves and our Monastery. 16Remember well: "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?". 17If this is an area of weakness for you, as it is for me, then I would encourage you, my fellow Monasterians, to consider a vow of silence as I have done, speaking rarely and with words carefully chosen to edify and inform.a

18Brothers and sisters, I commend you once again for restoring my faith in the idea of a viable, on-line community. And now,

19May your syntax always be correct and your algorithms efficient. 20May your references point to good data, and may you grow in the knowledge and understanding of our beloved language, Perl.

21Amen and amen.

   a 17 Some early manuscripts do not have verse 17

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: 1st Monasterians
by japhy (Canon) on Mar 06, 2002 at 17:43 UTC
    What a shame this wasn't written as Perl poetry. ;) And as a footnote to verse 13, HTML-like structures (that is, if HTML were "perfect") can be parsed (albeit with effort) with regexes. But now it seems like I've started Protestantism or something, so I'll back off from that. ;) That being said, I humbly offer this translation.
    substr("Erudil to the Monasterians", 0, 1); 1 . Erudil->isa(PerlHacker) .. [ "vroom", @saints, @monastery ]; 2 . undef $^W, close(STDERR) and !$! for 1..100; 3 . -M Erudil > 2*365 and $appreciation{$_}++ for qw( place custodians members ); 4 . do { for (@brothers, @sisters) { listen up, hearken } continue { to: wait() and study() for grep !clue($_) && ignorant($_), Visitors- To-Our-Blessed-Monastery } }; 5 . do { not rebuke($words{harsh} =~ /RTFM/), but }, lead-with-URLs if wisdom->isa( goal-of-theirs); 6 . allow for newbies and instruct(grep $_, @contents); 7. for 0 < grep errant || ignorant, @us; 8 . consider; these: 9 . ($^H & 0x602) and bless($they), for typos < troubles; 10 . $^W and bless($they), for $errors -> (0); 11 . %CGI:: and bless($they), for eval { pass-parameters } and not $@; 12 . eval "use CPAN; 1" and bless($they), for $wheels_not_reinvented > 1e9; 13 . qr// and bless($they), for HTML-time == 0; 14 . insults? ridicule? blessed: are: you, for time and effort < theirs; 15 . grep refuser($_), @those ? (do { not allow flame wars } or disrepute): yourselves or Monastery; 16 . study well::, $$ = 0 for grep cool lost, grep flamewar winner, @men; time < age-of-reason and 17 . those who suffer thus, do { consider: like me, close mouth, select words, carefully, to edify, to inform }; 18 . $_++ for @brothers, @sisters, restorers-of-faith and $^T = time, 19 . good-syntax and efficient- algorithms; 20 . eval { $$ref; 1 } and study, study Perl, study bless$ed, Perl; 21 . Amen and amen;

    _____________________________________________________
    Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a (from-home) job
    s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

Re: 1st Monasterians
by gmax (Abbot) on Mar 06, 2002 at 13:43 UTC
    (Later finding in a Perl catacomb)

    22 And blessed be the ones who don't make a habit of XP whoring ... :)
    for they will have a better chance of getting a date.
     _  _ _  _  
    (_|| | |(_|><
     _|   
    
Re: 1st Monasterians (ybiC 13:45-46)
by ybiC (Prior) on Mar 06, 2002 at 18:52 UTC
    45 Again, the kingdom is like a merchant looking for fine Perla.
    46 When he found codea of great value, he went away and sold everything he owned and bought it.

    a scholars disagree on meanings of original greek forms of these words




    Update: minor verbage tweaks for more consistant analogy

        cheers and ++Erudil,
        Don
        striving toward Perl Adept
        (it's pronounced "why-bick")
Re: 1st Monasterians
by Biker (Priest) on Mar 06, 2002 at 13:34 UTC

    I listen and learn once more Erudil, to your vise words. I was very kindly accepted and given indications of good directions when I first came here and I will always remain grateful to my fellow monks.

    It is my duty to try to remember your vise words, so that one day when I am vise in programming Perl, I should also be humble when helping others to program Perl and that the little help I can give today shall be constructive.


    Everything will go worng!

Re: 1st Monasterians
by newrisedesigns (Curate) on Mar 06, 2002 at 15:08 UTC

    New users to Perl and to the Monastery really should read this. It's pretty funny, and true to the point, and it reflects what PerlMonks is about.

    Maybe as an appendice or a 'long lost scroll' in the "Guide to the Monastery."

    John J Reiser
    newrisedesigns.com
Re: 1st Monasterians
by McD (Chaplain) on Mar 06, 2002 at 15:21 UTC
    Selah!

    ++Erudil, crown jewel in the pantheon of PerlMonk saints.

    Peace,
    -McD

Re: 1st Monasterians
by tjh (Curate) on Mar 06, 2002 at 23:14 UTC
    erudil, well done!

    This set me thinking about the Monastery, the 'heirarchy' tied (no pun intended - well, maybe not) to the gradients of canonization <initiate .. saint> here at PerlMonks, and led me to the thought of Perl certification. :)

    (I know, wars have started over lesser controversies.)

    Should there ever be a recognized, respectable source of such certification (a seminary?), should it:

    • Certify in gradients based on tested levels of expertise, and call each level by PM's ecclesiastical titles?
    • Have the issued certificates presided over by a Bishop with full authority to issue, restest and revoke?
    • Have a board responsible for standardizing levels of expertise (the catechism), mandating recertification timing, etc? (college of cardinals?)
    • Hmmm. Would we ever end up with our own Knights Templar? lol
    • and just maybe, the powers-that-be might get us a better calendar...

    What have I missed?

    But we need to stay away from that Celibacy concept...

Re: 1st Monasterians
by nefertari (Chaplain) on Mar 08, 2002 at 09:58 UTC
    I like it very much, but shouldn't the greeting in the beginning be:
    "Laziness, Impatience and Hubris be yours in abundance."? ;-)
Re: 1st Monasterians
by Joost (Canon) on Dec 19, 2003 at 00:46 UTC
      And thank you both, Erudil for the passage and Joost for the link.


      John
Re: 1st Monasterians
by LazerRed (Pilgrim) on Jun 25, 2003 at 00:17 UTC
    Strange stares of disbelief from co-workers, as I spontaneously spit coffee over my desk as I read:

    13) Blessed are they that understand regexs, for they shall waste no time trying to parse HTML.
Re: 1st Monasterians
by weini (Friar) on Mar 07, 2002 at 11:33 UTC
    I can't find the right words in english ... so a big "THANK YOU, ERUDIL" has to do it all.
    Being a acolyte, may I bring some incense for you ;^)

    weini,
    who's looking forward reading the second letter (or perhaps a First Letter to the PHPdriants?).

Re: 1st Monasterians
by choeppner (Pilgrim) on Jul 22, 2002 at 04:49 UTC
    O scholarly ones

    There have been rumors of a set of tablets
    Containing the 10 commandments of Perl Programming?

    Does anyone know what was written on those tablets?

Re: 1st Monasterians
by disciple (Pilgrim) on Sep 16, 2002 at 01:25 UTC
    I wish this were the general conduct of others outside the Perl culture. Then again, if it were too nice, I might never get off the computer. :-)
Re: 1st Monasterians (use CGI)
by Anonymous Monk on Mar 10, 2017 at 17:04 UTC
    11Blessed are they that "use CGI;", for their parameters shall be passed without error.

    Oh the irony!! xD xD xD

      Oh the irony!! xD xD xD

      Always look at the publish date ,

      the age of reinventing CGI.pm was alive and well in yonder time

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