[FWP] Admin?: Ideas for how to play the game

[Vicki Brown <vlb@cfcl.com>]

Is it a quiz show or an evil experiment?

I got a letter from a lurker (excerpted/edited) :-)

> A suggestion for making [this list] different [from CLPM]...
>
> Be sure all code is heavily commented, line for line.
> ...
> If ... you would like to attract readers like myself ...
> (of which there are many  ...  who are trying to gain
> experience with Perl and all it's subtle nuances, then make the commitment
> to help us gain knowledge.
> ...
> Comments, comments, comments and more comments.  Helping people with Perl
>is
> the secret to making this list unique.

In case anyone is wondering, I really liked the Linux Weekly News
explanation of the raison detre for the list:

     It appears to be intended primarily as a way of sending around
     interesting bits of Perl code, including bad, humorous, or obfuscated
     ways of doing things (as well as good stuff, of course).

Yup. And the learning experience is good too.

May I humbly suggest two things:

  1) My lurking correspondent makes a good point...

  2) But don't jump in _too_ fast with those comments! (SPOILER!)

Perhaps, sometimes, presenting a seemingly too simple or possibly
obfuscated "solution" ... on the face of it... should be viewed as yet
another puzzle?

Might it not take some of the fun out of it to provide the explanation
along with the answer? At least immediately? Even if you're giving your
answer to someone else's puzzle. (Unless the "how" is the answer).

Often, a lot of the fun is in working out

   OK...I think I see it. But... _why_ does that work?
     (at all, better, whatever).

I've been watching some of the conversations and I've been enjoying the
ones where people toss the puzzle ball around.

So ... I'm hoping to complement CLPM with FWP.  This is not so much of a
"how do I" list or a "what did I do wrong" list as it is a list in
appreciation of Perl.
   How do I do it... in fewer lines of code?
   How do I do it... More elegantly?
   How do I do it ... more perlishly.
And, of course, there's plenty of room for sniggers
  can you believe he did it this way?!
  Look what I did wrong! And it worked too!
As well as
  See how I took this code I got and improved it and boiled it down to THIS!

Just let's leave out the names of the perpetrators (unless they're us :)

I hope we won't feel afraid to ask "How DOES that WORK?!"
And won't feel bad (a little chagrined maybe) if you find yourself saying
"I did that... was it wrong? Oh.")

(Everybody try not to be _too_ smug when explaining ... ;)

- V.
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