I find myself growing increasingly restless in my place of work. I am constantly discouraged by the fact that I have become the resident guru in Perl and Unix in our department despite the fact that everyone there has been programming Perl (and other languages) for years.

Yes, guru status is a nice little ego boost, but I feel a growing need to work among people who will challenge me. People who would review my code and offer helpful suggestions, rather than just saying, "Oooo, how did you do that?" or "Why are you working so fast?" (some of them actually say that). I want to work on larger-scale multi-developer projects where there is a give-and-take among the developers. Basically, I want to keep learning.

Since I first picked up the Camel book a year ago and started to learn about programming, I have had an ever-increasing appetite to learn about Perl. I find OO design to be a natural way of thinking and enjoy writing OO Perl. I am in the process of taking over the maintenance of a module on CPAN based on some interesting OO concepts. I am constantly reading (recent books: Perl for Sys Admin, OO Perl, The Design of Everyday Things, Think Unix) and I can't get enough. I say all of these things because these are the things that excite me. I just don't feel like there is anyone around here that can share that excitement.

Any advice or insight that you may have would be much appreciated. Is what I'm feeling common? Should I just be thankful that I'm employed? Is this just a case of excessive hubris? Have you ever felt this way?

Thanks for listening

In reply to Advice for a Restless JAPH by Anonymous Monk

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