Funny, just 3 days ago I posted this question Are Perl and the dynamic languages dead or what ? and suddenly I noticed about 5-7 open Perl position for experienced Perl programmer in our neighborhood.

Some of the jobs are in the mail archive and some were just phone calls that might show up somewhere or be directed to placement companies.

While some of the jobs need Perl as an add-on tool many need Perl as the main expertise with several years of experience.

Being somewhat involved in the local Perl community and having organized a couple of workshops I feel that there are not enough good Perl programmers around to fill these jobs. (and I actually cannot define what a good Perl programmer would be). Most (if not all) of those whom I know and are good are also employed.

Select ppl. with 1-2 years of Perl or retrain others with 7-10 years of Java/C/C++ experience ?

If you really need good (experienced ?) Perl programmers from the local market and you don't find the perfect match you can either hire less experienced programmers whom already have 1-2 year of Perl behind them and give them more time or you can hire people experienced in some other language (e.g. 7-10 years in Java or C/C++ ?) and teach them Perl.

I wonder which approach is better ?
How long would it take for a good (expereinced ?) Java/C/C++ programmer to be good in Perl ?
Sure one cannot get 5 years experience in Perl just within a few month but with the heavy background in other languages it might be better than someone who has only 1-2 years of Perl and no other programming experience.

In reply to How much time to become a good Perl programmer ? by szabgab

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