> > On Dec 4, 2003, at 8:41 PM, R. Joseph Newton wrote: > > Guay Jean-Sébastien wrote: > >> ... > >> Though it doesn't benefit those who didn't post the question > >> (and answers seldom do, since people who can answer questions > >> normally don't need the answers), > > > > I would not assume that at all. Programming is an extremely > > open-ended art and set of skills. I think the veterans on the > > list benefit as well as newbies from the discussions. Since > > there are always many approaches to take to any problem, > > we all gain fresh insigths from the interchange. > [..] > > I'd underscore that a few more times. Think about the > context of perl - it is internet glue - so there is > stuff always rolling over the rollers from all sorts > of directions, DBI, Unix, Cgi, Win32, <insertYourModuleKultHere>. > > So there is always more stuff to play with > each time around. As an illustration I finally broke down > and downloaded the POE and crawled through it, > to see if it really would make me all warmUndtFuzzy... > > While it is intrinsically true that IF I happen > to know an answer, then I don't need that one answered, > but there may as R. Joseph points to it, a 'fresh insight' > that comes from seeing N-ways to solve that 'one question'. >
While this overall point is very valid, it is taken out of context. By switching the word "answers" to fit the context, something such as "automated tool to generate links to search results found in common locations" then those "answering" don't need the answers, as presumably they know how to search google, cpan, perl.org, etc. (at least I hope, but then my house of cards has been shattered before ;-)) and they aren't "looking for an answer" per se. Which is possibly a better way to think of this list, nearly 50% of the answers provided are not an answer but where to find an answer, or how to interpret the answer provided by that location (often the perldoc). Which really gets back to Casey's original impetus and drieux's 'fix the root of the problem' post, which I intended to respond to but will now just do so here. I think it is a good idea and had started to work on something to that effect, where rather than posting the same answers to the same questions I would just post a link to a summary of the discussion that had previously taken place. Not unlike what drieux has done and proposed, but slightly different. drieux's content is excellent I think, but may go slightly too far by enriching the topic with additional code build out pieces, which if you have the time are worth it to read (and the OP will probably run into the problems that are extrapolated and covered all at once, if they could only see that they would but they may (probably?) won't), may get in the way of someone looking for a distilled IJustWantTheDamnAnswer listing ;-). Having said all of that I also know what resources are out there, FAQs, Cookbooks, etc. so who knows whether it would actually work. I do think the end object is different than what is available, tutorials, Perl FAQs (rather than real world problem FAQs, maybe?), straight cold documentation, automated First Response, so I may still have a stab at it, pending of course the new year ;-)... http://danconia.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://learn.perl.org/> <http://learn.perl.org/first-response>
