Witnessing for Perl

This weekend I popped my head into a career fair, and after chatting up the representative companies (150+ companies were bidding on about 30 or so booths), I walked away with some observations on how Perl is misunderstood in my community. On the chance that these experiences are slightly more universal, I thought I would share here.

1) Community Support
One of the main strengths of perl over some of those other languages is the community support, and I think just about everyone here understands this. Oddly enough, most of the people I talked with haven't heard of CPAN, let alone Perl monks. When I explained CPAN, especially, eyes lit up at the prospect.

2) C Interoperability
I took it as a positive sign that I saw more companies looking for C than C++ developers, but apart from my own personal preferences on that front, none of them seemed to realize that Perl is designed to work with both. As one of the reps said "sounds like a great prototyping language."

Two areas that were recognized strengths of Perl were in regular expression processing, and database connectivity. Perl still has a solid reputation as a language for getting something out of a database or a large text document, and performing all sorts of wonderful transformations on it. I think most reps were also relieved to hear a Perl advocate say that Perl may not be the best solution to all problems, even if it can provide an adequate solution to many.

I don't know how many of you have similar experiences, or if your own observations to share, but I thought it was nice to see that its core strengths are still recognized, and that the community standing behind the language will help keep it a useful tool for the future.

--starX
axisoftime.com

Comment on Witnessing for Perl

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Witnessing for Perl by zentara (Cardinal) on Jan 27, 2008 at 18:18 UTC
*how Perl is misunderstood* I havn't had experiences like yours, but my observation is how ignorant (and removed from the realities of computers) the management class is. Good programmers know the value of Perl, and managers just believe what they are told by teachers, and superiors; who generally believe rumors that Perl is an obsolete language meant for web programming. Linux use is even worse, most management types believe that Linux is an unstable, virus prone, unreliable OS. The truth is the opposite, but you can't tell a management type that. For one thing, they generally are afraid of having to learn something new( some are too dumb to learn... no kidding), and are constantly exposed to Microsoft propaganda. The world is changing however; and as emerging economies grow using Linux and Perl ( because it is more economical and reliable), they will start to be more successful than the old stagnant companies stuck with Microsoft servicing charges( constant expensive updates, virus problems, and the looming lawsuits over lack of security). That really drags down a company's bottom line. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. Cogito ergo sum a bum	[reply]
Re^2: Witnessing for Perl by renodino (Curate) on Jan 27, 2008 at 19:25 UTC
...how ignorant (and removed from the realities of computers) the management class is. Recruiters too. Go to DICE and enter a search for "Pearl". Even if you weed out the handful of entries located in Pearl Harbor, HI, you'll still get a lot of hits. I may even need to update my jobs chart script to include 'pearl' in the search terms. Perl Contrarian & SQL fanboy	[reply]
Re^2: Witnessing for Perl by Mutant (Priest) on Jan 28, 2008 at 11:07 UTC
Unfortunately, there are plenty of developers (some of them even good developers, in other comparable langauges such as Ruby) who, for whatever reason, believe Perl is incomprehensible and obsolete. I'm sure we've heard all the arguments before, and know that there are perfectly good counter arguments, and that none of the arguments really fit in with our own experience anyway. These developers can also have a big influence on management (or else management doesn't care, and lets their devs deal with that level, resulting in perfectly good systems being rewitten from scratch, or holy wars between different factions of developers).	[reply]
Re: Witnessing for Perl by robot_tourist (Hermit) on Jan 28, 2008 at 10:09 UTC
Steve Yegge has a long rant about phone screens, but the relevance is that he shows Perl has a place, even though he doesn't seem to be a fan. Unfortunately, while I don't think I'm stupid, I think I'd need to do a bit of work to pass one of his phone screens. How can you feel when you're made of steel? I am made of steel. I am the Robot Tourist. Robot Tourist, by Ten Benson	[reply]
Re: Witnessing for Perl by hangon (Deacon) on Jan 28, 2008 at 07:54 UTC
Excerpt from a conversation with a web developer employed by the U.S. government: ... I know what LAMP is, but I've never used any of the technologies ... I like Adobe and Microsoft ... We avoid open source because nobody is held accountable ... To me this sums the attitude toward Perl and other open source projects. He was actually amazed that profitable businesses have been built around open source software, and people use it to earn a living.	[reply]
Re: Witnessing for Perl by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Jan 29, 2008 at 17:46 UTC
Let's be frank: recruiters are salesmen. They might well have no idea just what they are selling. They want to find vaguely-qualified candidates to stuff into a slot, hoping to get a commission. It's strictly a numbers/volume game, and you are “`one (1)`.”
Re: Witnessing for Perl by rgiskard (Hermit) on Jan 31, 2008 at 02:03 UTC
I've found that industries that need a quick turnaround often tend toward "scripting" languages (like perl) around other core languages and/or database backends. Jobs that I've interviewed for in the past (>1year ago) that used PERL include LAMP development(where P = Perl), testing, perl coupled with other-language development and QA. It is better to talk to companies outside of job fairs. Sometimes job fairs are a great place to use the latest buzz word (as some at the fair can only hear/speak buzz words) and to declare to a prospective employer where your skills fit in to those buzz words. IMHO Perl isn't the buzz word it used to be; while lamer technologies, coff XML coff still happen to be useful/popular buzz-words. rgiskard ponders: I'm curious how many follow up interviews I'd have in a job fair if I said the following to prospective booths: Java, .NET, XML, C#, MySQL, Oracle... probably a lot. I've noticed that these technology buzzwords have become more like powerful spells, mindlessly capturing peoples attention and planning for no good reason (@_@)	[reply]