If you want that there be more Senior Perl Programmers - re-arrange your goals, desks, and salaries.

The line between To Have Room and Not To Have Room is arbitrary; constraints mostly aren't.

A junior will eat part of the team's cake, for sure. But nourishing the programming skills of a junior is giving back what you once received. Golf a bit to make room. There's no better place for programmers highly motivated in learning than a workshop full of cracks. Laying out your recruitment terms reflecting the reality of your shop - ie. applicants don't earn much at start; they must expect a steep learning curve; have to learn mostly by themselves; income will raise according to usefulness - and you'll get the right ones.

Where did your programming skills come from? Who was feeding you as you weren't taking notes in class? Whose expectations did you betray whilst fixing your self-invented bugs? (if you didn't suffer from this, s/your/others/ :-)

If you don't pass your skills on, who else? Share your memory.

--shmem

long version available upon request

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