On Fri, Dec 03, 2010 at 05:08:42PM -0800, chromatic wrote: > On Friday 03 December 2010 at 16:53, Leon Timmermans wrote: > > > We do, honestly. I'm tired of having to explain to newbies why the > > official perl documentation is not strict friendly, when I tell them > > they should use strict. **I don't know how to explain that to them**, > > it simply doesn't compute. > > You've had the "But I copied and pasted it directly from the documentation, > and now my program doesn't work anymore!" discussion too?
The point of the documentation isn't to supply a number of code fragments, so newbies can program by just cut-and-pasting. The examples are code *FRAGMENTS*. Some assembly required. We cannot guess what the scope of the variables in the code that's cut-and-pasted anyway. But I guess the general population is dumbing down in at an alarming rate. Cookbooks need detailed instructions, including pictures, on how to peel potatoes before boiling them, and newbies can only program by cut and pasting piecemeal chunks. Abigail
