Re: PerlMonks as Ambassadors

[footpad]

Thanks, turnstep, for mentioning this. This is an important reminder that the Monastery is designed to pursue certain ideals, ideals that may not be served by flame wars, knee-jerk reactions, or overly harsh responses in the name of troll-prevention.

I would add a few bullets to your list:

• If you see a question that you *know* has been answer previously. Consider posting a collection of links, along with a gentle nudge toward the FAQ (or Turnstep's home node).

• Evaluate such lists and see whether or not they are appropriate. If not, consider writing a tutorial. If you know such a tutorial is in the works, gently nudge the writer toward completing it. (Um, Ovid?)

• Remember that your words are public and will be viewed and reviewed over time. People perusing the historical record may not know (or care) about your angst in the moment. Leave your personal troubles outside the Monastery Gates.

• Remember the words of many grandmothers, maiden aunts, and other maternal behavioral correctors, "If you can't say anything nice..."

• Grudges are rarely productive; sniping less so. (And, yes, I'm also referring to comments that could conceiveably seen that way..."Out of context" is not a justification for rudeness.)

Remember, we're all at different points along the Perl Way and each traveller brings a different set of experiences and ideas.

Some may not have mastered the skills you consider trivial. On the other hand, they may also have things to teach you...but only if you're willing to listen, accept your limitations, and then move on.

Mistakes happen. Progress only occurs when we learn from them.

--f

[Ovid]

footpad wrote:

If you know such a tutorial is in the works, gently nudge the writer toward completing it. (Um, Ovid?)

Mea culpa! Mea culpa!

I realized what a large task I was undertaking in trying to write a Perl/CGI tutorial. My life, in the interim, has taken some, um, fascinating turns. Moving to Amsterdam and programming in VBScript, moving back to the U.S. and unexpectedly breaking up with my girlfriend,^* and a whole host of other excuses have kept me away from this project. Frankly, however, I think "excuses" is the key word.

I have been planning to add lesson four soon, but I still don't even have a place to live (staying with the ex-girlfriend -- you can guess what that's doing to my mindset). For the curious, lesson four is going to be using CGI.pm and it's HTML functions to create a "mailing list sign-on" page. It will be rather involved, but it needs to be. I was thinking of lesson five as being an introduction to using HTML templates and beyond that, I haven't given a lot of thought besides adding to the appendices and creating a glossary.

For all of you who have messaged me and asked for more, I can only offer my humblest apologies.

Cheers,
Ovid

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* I know of at least one monk who's going to be really shocked by that and ask me what the heck is going on. To you (and you know who you are), I can only say that I will email you later when I have my head sorted out. Sorry about ignoring you.