''PerlMonks'' is a community

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikip ...

covering all aspects of

Perl Perl is a family of two High-level programming language, high-level, General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, Interpreter (computing), interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it ...

programming and other related topics such as

web applications A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

and

system administration A system administrator, or sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to en ...

. It is often referred to by users as 'The

Monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whic ...

'. The name PerlMonks, and the general style of the website, is designed to both humorously reflect the almost religious zeal that programmers sometimes have for their favorite language, and also to engender an atmosphere of calm reflection and consideration for other users. Users (referred to as

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

s) create discussion topics which other monks can reply to and vote as good or bad. Users have an experience rating (XP) that roughly measures their participation in the PerlMonks website as perceived by the other monks, not necessarily their proficiency in the

language. All monks have a 'home node', providing profile information and an area for Monks to personalize. Notable members include the creator of the Perl language, the authors of several well-known Perl books and the authors of numerous

CPAN The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) is a repository of over 250,000 software modules and accompanying documentation for 39,000 distributions, written in the Perl programming language by over 12,000 contributors. ''CPAN'' can denote eith ...

modul

CPAN authors frequently promote and provide support for their modules at PerlMonks.

Features

The site has tutorials, reviews, Q&A, poetry,

obfuscated code In software development, obfuscation is the act of creating source or machine code that is difficult for humans or computers to understand. Like obfuscation in natural language, it may use needlessly roundabout expressions to compose statemen ...

, as well as sections for code snippets and entire scripts and modules. Generally, the section of the site with the most traffic is Seekers of Perl Wisd

where users of all experience levels ask Perl-related questions. Some questions are from beginners trying to understand the basics of the language, while others are from seasoned veterans looking for methods to improve upon

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

s or to optimize performance. Those who provide answers are also of varying experience levels. Much of the site's content consists of specific code examples. Some of these examples are for Perl's core featur

as documented on the official Perl documentation website (http://perldoc.perl.org). Other examples are for the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (

), which is a repository for Perl libraries (known as modules) that are not part of the core Perl distribution. The code that the site runs on is a much hacked fork of an early version of the Everything Engine and was created by Nathan Oostendorp as part of Blockstackers Intergalactic — the firm that also ran

Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evalu ...

. As a result, PerlMonks has many features in common with both

Everything2 Everything2 (styled Everything2 or E2 for short) is a collaborative Web-based community consisting of a database of interlinked user-submitted written material. E2 is moderated for quality, but has no formal policy on subject matter. Writing on ...

and

like its strong emphasis placed on user feedback. Another feature that PerlMonks retains from

Everything Everything, every-thing, or every thing is all that exists; the opposite of nothing, or its complement. It is the totality of things relevant to some subject matter. Without expressed or implied limits, it may refer to anything. The universe i ...

is the Chatterbox, which is a text chat area at the side of every page. Logged-in users can type in anything they want, and it appears for all users to see. Talk in the chatterbox is often Perl related, and various tools (written in Perl) have been written to improve the chatterbox experience. Some come to PerlMonks primarily for the chatterbox. Others find the chatterbox distracting and turn it off.

References

External links

* http://www.perlmonks.org/ {{Perl Perl Computing websites Modularity