Someone told me when I had similar issues just a few months ago that [sic] "It's not new for you anymore. You've read the tutorials and checked out all the coolest posts that are mostly between 5 and 10 years old. Now you just see it for what it currently is and you don't like what you see."

Yeah, maybe that's true. Though there are a number of monks I like and want to hear how they're doing, there are less of them around than when I first started getting to know many of you. There are people I haven't seen or heard from in a while and this is only my third year as a monk.

The other truth, possibly what is most true of all, this is the internet. Getting and giving help on the internet is hard. At least it's hard when the question can't be tied up quickly with a pretty bow and has been repeated dozens of times. It's both more practical and effective to find the answer outside of a web forum (IRC, Stack, whatever.). I have found it more rewarding to scour the documentation, books or, if need be, contact a friend (Even if they're not a Perl programmer, at least for me, it can be boiled down to thinking through the problem better).

It has nothing to do with skill. I think this is just a difficult way to get answers to non trivial questions. You're sitting in front of a keyboard and need to figure the problem out — likely NOW. Even trivial questions will have dozens of possibilities with accompanying opinions. You could go to Stack but I just find that it's different — not better.

So you figure out how to get your own answers and even come up with your own interesting questions to drive you to become better. At least that's the reason for me.

It doesn't drive me to say: "Goodbye forever." More like: "See you down the road."