I'm sorry to "hear" that, rje.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank you for sharing this. It reminds me there are other people facing this same kind of issue. That means we can help each other finding strengh and insight to get through it.

Python has become very popular in the company I'm working for, but even Python is mocked sometimes by Java people, as some seem to have a strong belief that Java is the solution for everything (and here I was, thinking this was a problem of ten years ago).

The mere fact that somebody can believe there's a one-size-fits-all solution suggests a serious cultural problem, in the first place. Needless to say, people who think like that would have a hard time with Perl TIMTOWTDI thing.

But what's ironic here is that my interest in Perl arose because a co-worker in this same company once asked me something about Perl. I had never programmed in Perl until then, so I couldn't help him. Perhaps even more ironic is the fact that he was working on a container.

But anyway, I thought to myself: "if he believes for some reason that I'd have the answer, then maybe it's because I should". I mean, "maybe it's because I'd like Perl". And I was correct. It didn't take me long to see how much enjoyable Perl is.

I've tried to argue with my boss last year about that. I told him how daunting it is for me to have sometimes to get my feet on Java code (not that it happens very often, thankfully), while Perl is never ever mentioned for anything.

His answer was not really surprising:

"I understand you, but I must be able to hire people who can work on it afterwards. What happens if you leave the company? I won't have a good time finding other Perl programmers."

Actually, I think he'd be surprised about how wrong is that last statement, but the thing is I couldn't prove him wrong. I believe groups like Perl Mongers could greatly help on that. However, the pandemic situation brought some difficulties on it.

What always helped me get through such situation are communities, no matter how small they are. They're like a safe harbour. When you know there's people who care about something, that's what give you strenght to fight for it too.

It's just like how many species afford to survive: they work together. Without that, there's no surviving. Bees and ants, for instance. They build their places together so they can survive as a group. I think we can always learn from them.