First, thank you for the courage to put a question like that on here.

Point for point:

• Which brings me to my point: I'm considering hunting for a job where I can develop my skills in an environment where the programmers know what they are doing. However, after finding this code and seeing some of the "production code" posted here, I am concerned as to whether I am Questing for the Grail. The only consolation that I have is that these are a bunch of really nice people that I enjoy being around. - I personally have not met a whole company where everybody knows what they are doing (at least not at the level I wanted). I am just right now working in a team where we start to know each other better, so that a feeling like "as a team, we know what we're doing" emerges. Also, you should ask yourself if you want competent coworkers, or something like mentoring being available. Alas, I myself would really like some mentoring, but people able to do that seem to be rare.
• Do you believe that developing Web sites means you can't have adequate specs? - No, definitely not. Web site development is not black magic, and it is not much faster or slower than other development, I think. Customers have an exaggerated expectation fueled by Web hype, though. For more on that, I'd like to recommend Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, it has detailed information on how to gather requirements for a big web site. There *is* a big difference in approach between "old-style", document-centric websites, where business processes are everything, and "new-style", application-centric websites, which are more like client-server applications (just with a browser as a GUI), but that does not mean you can't develop adequate specs.
• Do most Web development companies take security seriously, or is it treated as an afterthought? - In my experience, security is treated seriously, but usually rules out Perl in the first place due to political arguments, and results in Java taking over the place, and not getting done anything. Also, Perl is often used for rapid application development / prototyping, and security is often not the first priority in such a setting.
• Is your company averse to installing CPAN modules, even if they have been reviewed carefully? - No, not at all. We use all the CPAN stuff we can, to enhance productivity. We have no time to reinvent the wheel.
• Do you have a job for a Portland, OR monk ;) - No, I am located in Germany. Sorry. OTOH, if you are able to make that move, you will sure be welcome!
• While I feel that I am a generally solid programmer, I realize that I have a LOT to learn. I feel that I can better do that in a company that takes programming and security seriously, but I am seeing many examples where companies using Perl don't appear to be doing that. Will I be disappointed with most companies? Am I being conceited? - I think you really want an environment where you can get some mentoring. BUT, at your level of technical expertise "the air gets quite thin", and you will have to do a lot of searching to get what you want. Maybe you can do an internship at some *really* cluefuel place, like a research center at a big company, or a "legend" company like ActiveState, and maybe you can make the grade. The other option is to grow alone, with "remote support" by communities like this. Regardless of the way you take, I wish you all the luck you can get. You will need it.

Christian Lemburg
Brainbench MVP for Perl
http://www.brainbench.com

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