Ricardo wrote an article "promoting little gifts", which @perlbuzz tweeted as "giving little gifts as thanks".
I like that idea, and it inspired me to remind people to please also consider just giving "thanks", too.
Sure, I'd love a song or a small ebook (and maybe I should set up a wishlist), but I also love getting an email saying thanks, particularly when it is from someone I don't already know telling me that they like a module I released to CPAN or telling me how they are using my code to solve some problem they have. Email is cheap, but still has huge impact.
Perl is a community built on altruism. Don't forget to say thank you!
5 Comments
It's true. Although, almost always, I prefer cookies.
It's no surprise that I've used many of your modules (since you have a number of very influential ones out there), and have even released some modules myself that make heavy use of yours.
Here's a short, incomplete list of some of the modules I'm very thankful for:
CPAN::Meta
Task::CPAN::Reporter
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::CheckChangesHasContent
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::CheckExtraTests
File::chdir
HTTP::Tiny
Module::Build
Module::Metadata
Thanks for all of your great contributions to the community, and especially for all your work on cpan, pause, dist zilla, and surely many other projects you've influenced. You are an inspiration!
You're welcome!
Thanks for the suggestion! (Is that a meta-thanks?)
From now on, I'm going to try and make a habit of sending thank-you emails to CPAN authors while their modules are installing. Seems like the least I can do.
Great idea! Though, I install so many modules, that I'd probably have to automate it somehow. :-)