On Tue, 16 Apr 2002, Puneet Kishor wrote: > On Tuesday, April 16, 2002, at 01:47 AM, Bruce Van Allen wrote: > > > 2. Chris has promptly and forthrightly apologized; any further > > discussion that does not acknowledge this would seem inappropriate. > > I do acknowledge, it is very kind of you Chris. I commend that. I have > also commended you on the pains you take in writing clear explanations, > but now cringe at the thought that you/others might be prefixing it with > a sigh of boredom.
I'm very sorry that I've led you to think that. More than once you have sent a nice polite thank you message off list after I posted a reply on-, and it still bothers me that I responded to that so rudely. :( > On Tuesday, April 16, 2002, at 01:51 AM, Ken Williams wrote: ....basically what I was getting at, but much more politely and without singling anyone out. He raised the points that I do find more significant, namely that a list like this is going to have two audiences: [a] seasoned hackers that just see OSX as another platform to adapt to, and [b] people exposed to Perl for the first time by OSX, and looking for introductory tips and advice. These audiences can gain a lot from sharing a list, but at the same time they have kind of opposite aims. In the long run, it isn't clear to me where things can or should evolve from that background. > > On Tuesday, April 16, 2002, at 02:02 PM, ashley wrote: > > > > Which begs the question of what the hell *is* this list for, anyway? > > Yes indeed... what is it for, and who decides that? Well, we do, of course. Peer pressure, mutual concensus, topic drift. The only question is how deliberately do we steer it in whatever direction it goes, as opposed to just letting it drift along. > I (or any other beginner for that matter) cannot learn Perl or be > endeared to it if I constantly live under the fear that every question I > submit to the list is possible going to offend some seasoned Perl > hacker. I strongly agree, and I strongly feel that beginners should feel welcome to ask any kind of Perl questions without having to worry that some slightly more experienced nitwit is looking down his nose at them. We *all* have a lot to learn -- I know I have a hell of a lot to learn. Explaining what intro stuff I can helps me clarify my understanding of that material (and hopefully help others too), but I still feel that my grasp of all this is intermediate at best. No one should ever be made to feel that an on-topic question would ever be offensive to the others. Again, just to wrap up my involvement in this sordid thread, I am very sorry for being so rude, and I really hope that I didn't scare anyone off from posting anything, expecially newbie questions. [1] -- Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED] Apache / mod_perl / http://homepage.mac.com/chdevers/resume/ "More war soon. You know how it is." -- mnftiu.cc [1] Except Alex Robinson, that other-list polluting bastard. :)
