No reason to not say it plainly: he was regularly a total dickhead to people asking for help. But, also, he always gave people first-class expert help. They just had to "pay" by taking a bit of verbal abuse.
I spent over a decade in #perl on freenode/libera and saw so many abusive events that I eventually got tired of hanging out there, mostly due to him but in part also due to a handful of others displaying similar behavior. All the same I was always grateful for how tirelessly he spent so much of his personal time providing help, and I'm sad to learn of his passing.
I spent over a decade in #perl on freenode/libera and saw so many abusive events that I eventually got tired of hanging out there, mostly due to him but in part also due to a handful of others displaying similar behavior. All the same I was always grateful for how tirelessly he spent so much of his personal time providing help, and I'm sad to learn of his passing.