Re: Newbie?!

[Lexicon]

One should notice that one doesn't actually aquire the title of "Monk" until Level 5. I just got there myself (yesterday!) and, really, it's only now that I feel I have a firm grasp on the language and Perlmonks itself. Besides, Scribe to Monk only took me about 2-3 weeks, so it's not really that bad of a wait. Level 6 seems like such a long, long way away though. (^v^)

---

Update: I misspoke here. I'm not an expert at this language. 'Firm grasp' means I know where all my resources are and I can use DBI without the manual. 'Newbie' generally implies that one is kinda flailing about to establish oneself in an area that one is completely unfamiliar with. I assume this is mostly a issue between definitions.

It happened to coincide that last week I started reading some Perldoc things straight through in order to just blatantly broaden my horizons, as opposed to just referencing it for syntax as needed. Then I hit "Monk".

It is my perception that the crossover between good posting and authoritative posting happens in the Level 5 range. I havn't felt anything that I said was authoritative yet, and it will be another couple of months with the language before I feel that way about any but the 'newbiest' of questions. I speculate this will correspond with the time it takes to make Level 6.

-Lexicon

[Maclir]

Well, I am but a few points from level 7 (Friar - or should that be fryer?) I consider myself a beginner. I can hack out some simple programs, but there is still so much I don't understand.

Once you think that you have nothing else to learn - that is when you will learn nothing else. Keep your mind open - and keep looking and learning.

[repson]

I feel much the same way as you do, as someone also approching level 7.

I can write a perl program to do what I want it to do. But.... I still feel much like a newbie to programming in general, despite having been doing it for years now in some form or another.

And I feel this way despite seeming to have a fair knowledge of perl syntax, methodologies and intracacies, an idea of modules availible and some experience with a decentish selection of them and knowledge of how to get to most of the information I might need to do most of anything in perl.

However having never made anything other then tools, toys and projects for my own interest, desires or training, I feel I have not actually progressed to a truly 'useful' stage as a programmer.

So I spend some time on perlmonks answering people's questions. This I feel has been useful to me as searching through the docs for some obscure useage or module has expanded my perl knowledge. I don't always get the answer right. I don't always answer with the right detail, as furthur followups by other monks leave my feeble suggestions behind. But I still do help other people in their projects at times. But my own projects still feel like those of a newbie, with no true grasp of programming or perl.

[mp3car-2001]

I myself am closing in on Monk(5) and feel like a newbie. I've only had my login for 5 weeks but I've followed the site for close to a year and read a lot. I do feel like I have a good command of the language, but everytime I have a question and a search shows me its a 5 line fix it brings me back down to the newbie level all over again.

I think that says something about the perl language, that since there are some many more ways to do it, there are lots of elegant ways to things that gives it such a flexibility and wide array of uses that we all have a lot to learn.