[sf-perl] Perl website for noobies

frosty biztos at mac.com
Thu Apr 3 10:07:02 PDT 2008


 Hi Joey.

I had a look at the site, and here are my suggestions.

1) Don't try to be a "solutions destination"
	- Let PerlMonks be that, it's really good at it.
	- But there are lots of other resources you could explore and digest.
	- And (witness this list) there are people who prefer not to ask for Monk help.

2) Report what you learned.  That's something few people do.
	- Present a problem (yours or someone else's) and try to find an answer.
	- Tell folks what you (or they) did to get the answer.
	- This would be really helpful to newbies.
	- And it would boost your PageRank, in case you care.

3) If you want it to be a Perl website, you should make more obvious.
	- Right now it just looks like an ordinary Linux blog with a Perl menu item.

I don't want to discourage you from trying to build a local, or even virtually local, Perl community of any size.  I agree with Randal that there are already a few really strong ones and your chances of getting traction are slim, but I also agree with Andy that one never knows where the next great scene will arise.

I think the best way to build it is by providing useful resources to beginners (see #2 above) and giving them a simple way to ask for more info or share their insights.  If enough find it useful, enough will ask, and if you're paying attention you can cultivate a conversation.  You don't even need a forum until you have a large discussion going (and a forum needs an admin, etc. etc.).  Simple blog comments are quite sufficient.

I often find myself googling around for hints about really weird technical problems, and as often as not, the best help is found in the form of a blog post titled "How I fixed the Reflux Renoberator in Ubuntu 8.2 on ARM."  And if they allow comments, the best comments are things like "Worked for me but I had to install refluxlib-2.8.4 in step 3" or "Check out the similar thread at www.ubuntunoberator.com/foo.cgi?id=123."

Likewise, nothing is more frustrating than finding someone's record of struggling with the same problem you have, and seeing their list thread die before any useful help was found.

good luck

-- frosty


On Wednesday, April 02, 2008, at 02:34PM, "Joey Moe" <family_geek at yahoo.com> wrote:
>I wanted to mention that I started a website about Perl back in Feb. I am learning so it won't be filled with answers but I wanted to throw out a shameless plug, just in case any other people interested in learning Perl might want to visit and maybe discuss problems they are having or offer up solutions, you know in the spirit of community. I have no problem posting stuff if people want, and I have some forums. If you are interested, have a look:
>
>www.penguingeek.net
>
>If you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to listen. 
>
>Thanks for indulging me :)
>
>Joey Moe


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