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Perl monkish sites

by Boots111 (Hermit)
on Jun 13, 2002 at 15:59 UTC ( [id://174250]=perlmeditation: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Monks~

I have now been using Perl Monks for about a year and simply love the community here and the resources it provides. For me, the most valuable thing about Perl Monks is the people who are willing to point me in the right direction when I cannot find it myself.

Ever since I found Perl Monks, I have been searching for similar sites dedicated to other programming languages. Don't get me wrong, I love perl, but one of my hobbies is learning new programming languages. Unfortunately not all languages have this sort of a community oriented site to facilitate communication between programmers.

In fact, I have yet to find any sites really quite like this one. Do any other monks know of such sites? If so, what are they and do they have anywhere near the user base that Perl Monks does?

Thanks,
Matt
---
Computer science is merely the post-Turing decline of formal systems theory.
--???

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl monkish sites
by cjf (Parson) on Jun 13, 2002 at 18:33 UTC

    Other than the already mentioned Java Junkies I don't know of any that even come close. I do, however, have a few theories as to why similar sites don't exist for other languages...

    • Perl can be a very compact language. It doesn't take that many keystrokes to get your work done. This is great for discussion sites. In most cases you can easily reduce your problem to a few lines. You can also post complete applications that are well under 1000 lines. Which brings us to our next point...
    • Perl is Open Source. Perl programmers tend to follow this example and share their code (for very good reasons that I won't get into here, see The Cathedral and the Bazaar). This also leads to a very helpful environment where others will not hesitate to provide you with good advice.
    • Perl has a strange little culture of its own. Perl Poetry, Obfuscation, who comes up with this stuff? You don't see Java Poetry do you now? I'm still debating whether or not this is a good thing or not, but it is obvious there are some positive aspects to it.
    • CPAN, CPAN, CPAN. Duplication of effort is BAD. If all Open Source programs had to write their own HTML Parsers much less would be accomplished. So you need to figure out what existing code to use. Reviewing every piece of code out there wouldn't be feasible, so what do you do? Ask your fellow programmers for recommendations of course.
    • There's also the everything engine that the site runs on, and of course vroom and everyone who contributes to the site.

    Those are just off the top of my head, the list could go on for pages. There are a few other languages that could fit with at least a couple of these points. In time I'm sure a Python Monks and a Ruby Monks will pop up, but I doubt they'll become as successful as this (rapidly growing) website.

      I think the reason once again can be found in the fact that Larry designed Perl from a linguist's point of view, rather than a mathematician's. Obfuscation (ok, it's there for C too), poetry, the brevity of code, it's all part of the common theme that Perl feels much like a natural language; more so, at least, than your average programming language. The fact is that while you can do fun stuff with other languages, it is fun to be doing stuff with Perl. No other programming language quite manages to be an end in itself the way Perl can be. Meanwhile, you can get actual jobs done in Perl as well, and very well so in fact.

      As a result, and I suspect that's true to varying degrees of all the Perl enthusiasts, I tend to regard the journey as the destination as far as coding with Perl is concerned. I don't lose sight of the goal, but the getting there is as much fun as playing with the result. That's something other languages somehow lack, which makes their following mere communities, as opposed to Perl which has a culture.

      Makeshifts last the longest.

Re: Perl monkish sites
by mirod (Canon) on Jun 13, 2002 at 16:26 UTC

    You can try Java Junkies. It was created by Monks, so it should not be too different from here.

      Though I have been using perlmonks just for only one month(:-(),because I am a chinese highschool student,my english is poor,some of yours discussion I can't understand.:-( So,I must studying english hard now^-^. Thanks to Monks.(give u a kiss~~bo)
      To quote the Java Junkies site:

      Other Users
      ain't nobody here

      -sam

Re: Perl monkish sites
by BigJoe (Curate) on Jun 13, 2002 at 18:28 UTC
    I always that it would be fun to take the "Everything" engine and create new sites like "Lords of C", "Apache Tribe", "Penguins (A Linux site)", etc. Because I think these different Languages and Topics woudl benefit from a mechanism like Perlmonks. I always find myself looking for a Perlmonks style site for any Language/App that I am working with but there really isn't any.

    I have looked at one site that tries to be like a PerlMonks site for all computer related stuff. But I think it is too broad and people there seem to loose site of the sites goal.

    --BigJoe

    Learn patience, you must.
    Young PerlMonk, craves Not these things.
    Use the source Luke.
Re: Perl monkish sites
by tlhf (Scribe) on Jun 15, 2002 at 17:29 UTC
    Well, I know of two others, though both of them are quite commercial, and don't have the warmth of perlmonks.

    There's Delphi3000.com, which is covered in adverts and javascript, but has a lot of nice content. You need to be a member to access most of the content, but at least it's free. For now(?).

    There's also the Experts-Exchange.com, which is for everything, but again, very corperate like. It's kinda obsessed with a points system, far more than perlmonks.org.

    tlhf
    xxx
Re: Perl monkish sites
by stefp (Vicar) on Jun 14, 2002 at 20:37 UTC

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