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Re^9: RFC: Review of "Seekers of Perl Wisdom" description?

by ww (Archbishop)
on Apr 09, 2012 at 13:36 UTC ( [id://964126]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re^8: RFC: Review of "Seekers of Perl Wisdom" descrition?
in thread RFC: Review of "Seekers of Perl Wisdom" description?

Thanks, jenda and "Amen!"

Your approach seems to me far more likely to help newcomers become productive Perl programmers and far more likely to transform newcomers into contributing Monks than a practice of providing whatever is asked Note1   by the 'gimme' artist. If such individuals are driven away from the Monastery my view is "so be it!" The individual who believes s/he is somehow entitled to a learning-free solution is -- in my opinion -- less than likely to ever take the next step toward becoming a skilled programmer.

That's not to say I want the 'gimme' folk driven away (though I'm comfortable with the possibility -- nay, probability -- that some of the thin-skinned will be); rather, I want to see them adopt what I've long understood to be the Monastery's guiding principle -- roughly paraphrased as "we're here to help you learn; not to write free code."

When I first arrived, I got a quick dose of "RTFM" (which was unhelpful at that point) and multiple doses of "Read X and come back with your code and questions, if you don't grok X." That was helpful... and introduced me to what I believe was long the Monastery policy (again, loosely paraphrased):

We don't write free code and frown on requests for same; in fact, we don't even write demonstration code that solves your whole problem; but we will offer demo snippets and/or documentation if you've shown that you made a serious attempt to learn/solve your own problem...because we believe that will help you improve your skills.

Fundamentally, that approach seems to me to encourage the seeker to learn (or learn how to learn).


Note1  Tangentially, it seems to me that many of the examples of complete-solutions to SOPW are UNinstructive; yes, they're solutions, but are often posted without the kind of commentary or references to documents that explain the solution. Suspicious mind that I am, I can't help wondering if such answers are merely intended to show how clever the writer is or if they reflect a belief that the underpinnings of that solution are so obvious as to obviate the need for instruction. </end tangent>>

Updated with the parenthetic acknowledgment of paraphrase at the end of para 4.

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