Re: Why does PerlMonks rock?

[shmem]

What's the magic ingredient?

Perl.

update, to be more verbose - it is perl which gathers so much fine people here. The site was established, is maintained and driven by a bunch of great hackers and those following their steps. Which leads to all the benefits this site gives you. From Paul Graham's article -

Indeed, these statistics about Cobol or Java being the most popular language can be misleading. What we ought to look at, if we want to know what tools are best, is what hackers choose when they can choose freely-- that is, in projects of their own. When you ask that question, you find that open source operating systems already have a dominant market share, and the number one language is probably Perl.

It's those who love perl and this site's venerable engine which make this site so great in the loving beholder's eye. Perl is special.

...seen any python monks out there? ;-)

[Gavin]

This may go against the general opinion here, but I feel that given the same set of dedicated people and a language other than Perl that community would still Rock.

[FunkyMonk]

There's something magic involved with Perl.

There's lots of programming languages out there and many of them have forums dedicated to the language. Their forums have plenty of users and plenty people that answer questions.

But, I've yet to find another language that really has a community the way Perl does.

Perhaps it's all related to the Love many of us feel towards Perl. It just isn't the same as other languages.

(this space is reserved for the really kick-ass punchline I planned to write here. But, by the time I'd got here, I'd forgotten it.)

If you haven't already seen Clay Shirky on Love, Internet Style. Go watch it. Now.

[Your Mother]

Mmmmmaybe. The Monks here are amazing and many are tremendously strong in things other than Perl; which makes them better monks. I certainly would not be here if it weren't for Perl. I tried and finally set aside programming as a colossal and pointless bore, age 10-15 (no judgement, just my personality). As a 30 year-old I found Perl and became a professional developer because Perl is so damn fun to work with that I don't even really mind Larry-jobs (no slight against the Great and Powerful Wall) as long as I can use Perl to do the work.

There is a personality class that is attracted to Perl... I won't delve the adjectives because it would reek of hubris. I'll just say that I don't know any monks personally but I like just about all of them (you).

[shmem]

Yes, of course. But then, it's perl. Why? Because perl attracts those dedicated people, and perl is it in which they cast their dedication.

But thinking about it... there might be other vibrant language communities out there which I just don't happen to know - probably because I'm too busy with perl... ;-)