Prior to coming to Perl, I was paid to code in a variety of languages/tools: COBOL, EasyTrieve, Focus, UniBasic, JCL and VBA. Compared to other programmers I got my work done fast and thought I was good. Then I ran into Perl. I was amazed at how much faster I could get things done.

In coming to Perlmonks, rather than just teaching me how to solve a particular problem, Monks took the time to introduce me to computer science, something I previously had ignored. I started learning about stacks, queues, hash tables, O(n) notation, profiling, testing, etc. I'm at the point now where I've actually implemented a programming language (AI::Prolog) in Perl. The Perl community, and Perlmonks in particular, has taught me not just how to hack, but how to analyze and build systems. I wouldn't be where I am in my career today were it not for the patient and helpful people I have found here. Heck, it even got me a job in Amsterdam at one point :)

That, incidentally, is why I volunteer time for the Perl Foundation. It's my attempt to repay everyone for what they've given me. I don't always say it, but I'm very grateful to the Perl community.

Cheers,
Ovid

New address of my CGI Course.

In reply to How PerlMonks has changed me by Ovid
in thread PerlMonks has changed me by kwaping

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