Contents

• Description
• Rules
  • Do not paste.
  • Do no cross-post.
• Bots
  • knowpaced - paste bot
  • workbench - experimental bot
  • buubot - factoid and eval bot

Description (top)

EFNet #PerlHelp was started as an alternative to EFNet #Perl; it is intended to be a more helpful and friendly place. It provides assistance to those new to the language, as well as more advanced users.

Rules (top)

Rules in #PerlHelp are fairly lax. Mostly you are expected to follow normal IRC etiquette. Don't flood or paste to the channel, don't become overly offensive, and don't become abusive towards other users. If you are helping others please try to remain polite and positive.

• Do not paste.
• Do no cross-post.
  
  

• Do not paste. (top, rules)

  Do not paste large amounts of text to channel. This should be a common-sense rule, and a matter of normal IRC etiquette. The rule is designed primarily to prevent channel flooding. There are quite often paste bots around that you can use to show your code. This rule is also here to allow the people helping you to easily refer back to the text in question without having to scroll back and forth in the IRC window.

  
  

• Do no cross-post. (top, rules)

  Cross-posting is when you post the same question to multiple channels simultaneously. The idea is to get the question answered by as many people as fast as possible; what it really does is waste the time, energy, and patience of the very people that are trying to help.

  When the same question is posted to multiple channels what usually happens is each channel begins responding. They ask questions to clarify the problem, and offer solutions that may or may not be appropriate. The problem is each channel is doing this, without being aware that another channel is doing the same thing. Answers and questions overlap between channels, and generally you will be unable to respond to everything.

  If you are not getting a response from the channel, by all means, post your question to another. However, provide some opportunity to answer; 10 to 15 minutes is not an unreasonable amount of time to wait.

  
  

Bots (top)

• knowpaced - paste bot
• workbench - experimental bot
• buubot - factoid and eval bot
  
  

• knowpaced (top, bots)

  This is a paste bot provided by the #Perl Mongers. It currently resides on two networks; the EFNet page is here, and the Freenode page is here. It is in many channels so be sure to select the appropriate channel when you submit a paste.

  If you would like us to provide knowpaced for your channel feel free to contact us about it.

  
  

• workbench (top, bots)

  This is dngor's experimental bot. It's actually an interface to several bots in the backend. One of the bots does some minimal channel maintenance, and another does language analysis of what's said in channels. It's on several channels (including #poe and #pound-perl.pm), on several networks (including MagNet and EFNet).

  It is also known as workbensh on some networks.

  
  

• buubot (top, bots)

  Buubot is a factoid and eval bot being developed by buu. While it can be useful for its factoid abilities, the most useful feature is its ability to eval code provided to it. Simply give it some code in channel prefixed by "eval:" and it will run the code and display it back in channel. It also responds to /msg, and hangs out in #buubot.

  For example:
  <Somni> eval: @x = qw(1 2 3); join(" ", @x);
  <buubot> Somni: 1 2 3
  

  While the eval feature is certainly fun, please don't abuse it in channel. If you wish to show someone in channel some code you are working on, either to describe a problem or solution, or show off something clever, that's fine. If you wish to just test the bot, or test code, please use /msg or #buubot.