It is refreshing to see the LUG conversation turn toward a positive image for Linux by means of leaving out the negative. I still believe the best means of evangelizing an idea was used by Larry Wall as he first began telling others about the Practical Extraction and Reporting Language.

Larry was a regular on the shell scripting discussions, and obviously knew shell scripting very well. Rather than simply introduce Perl as "better" than shell scripting, with no proof, thereby creating contention where there was none, he began answering shell scripting discussions in the following manner:

He first answered the question with the shell script solution. Then, at the close of the email, he wrote: "But here is the Perl way of doing the same thing," and casually gave the Perl solution. He left it to the reader to make an informed decision.

I firmly believe this is the reason that Perl has always had an excellent reputation, across the board. As we do this with Linux, its credibility improves, because people see us as able to competently answer tech questions, as well as casually offering a better solution, rather than seeing someone to contend with.

Such patience takes time, but the perfection of patience is a friend, convinced of his own free will.

-Jared