I think the best measures of a good perl programmer are:
  1. usage of CPAN modules when available
  2. demonstrated knowledge of perl references
  3. demonstrated knowledge of (at least basic) regular expressions
  4. use strict; dammit
Ask for code samples they've written in the last 6 months.
Ask them to code something on a whiteboard.

More important is their basic application design knowledge. How to put together a program. How to modularize it. How to make the components reusable (do they even THINK about this?). How to break up a large spec into discrete parts which can be tackled somewhat atomically.

During interviews, I've been subjected to completely silly "program this crap with no external resources" and "what do the $' and $" and $/ and $\ vars in perl mean?" tests as well as others which concentrate more on my background and general domain knowledge. I think the former had it less right simply because nobody in their right mind codes without internet access or at least some freaking documentation at hand.

One who abstracts the database connection code into a module and never has to think about it again is more qualified than someone who memorizes the order of arguments to the DBI->connect() method.

In reply to Re: Have you netted a Perl Monk or Perl Pretender in 5 minutes or less? by saberworks
in thread Have you netted a Perl Monk or Perl Pretender in 5 minutes or less? by Anonymous Monk

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