On Sun, Mar 06, 2005 at 08:54:50AM -0500, John Redford wrote: > > From: Gyepi SAM > > Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 11:52 PM > > Subject: Re: [Boston.pm] Were to start ? > > > > On Sat, Mar 05, 2005 at 07:29:31PM -0800, Arthur Perkins wrote: > > > and I am interested in > > > starting a project with a product called ModBus. It is > > > an embedded application for industrial controllers. I > > > am not quite clear on how to start. > Here we have a "very new Perl user" -- the kind that many people claim to > want to persuade to become an "ardent Perl devotee" or perhaps even a > "fanatical Perl advocate".
I am not opposed to those goals. However, they are not mine. > And what is the response to his request for > assistance in using Perl to actually solve his problem? "I have read a > famously quotable book, and you need to go use a search engine instead of > expecting people who already know Perl to help you." > > Yes, Alice is fun to read and perhaps fun to discuss with the right people. > And Perl users have long demonstrated their literary awareness -- however > specialized and ersatz. But, if you consider the frame of reference of a > "very new Perl user", you may realize that he is more interested in solving > his problem and finding a helpful community than in literature. Sure. And I am interested in helping him solve his problem. However, there is no reason to be entirely humorless about it. > Yes, Google is generally the answer. That's how I found what I put in the > first paragraph of this message. But what kind of "community" grows by > telling people "You don't need us; we aren't helpful; everything you need > can be found elsewhere"? Just something for you to consider. My response was lighthearted, but certainly no less helpful than yours: I provided a pointer to a source of arguably more useful information. Given the generality of the question, I don't think I could have done better. Except perhaps by limiting myself to one quote ;) -Gyepi _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list [email protected] http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
