I think it should be clear to everyone that if you know Perl and you get a job at Google because you do, you will not be programming in Perl at Google. They just want you to be a programmer. You will use the language they tell you to use.

I can't imagine a firm that size having zero Perl programmers.

But the truth is that good programmers are so rare, that job descriptions tend to "fish" everywhere, in the hope to easily train the haul to swim in a new pond.

One of my last clients was even actively looking for PHP coders to be able to train them on Perl.

I dare saying a versatile Perl programmer can easily adapt, because of its TIMTOWTDI tendency to cover a maximum of paradigms, he has seen most concepts already.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the 𐍀𐌴𐍂𐌻 Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery}

But the truth is that good programmers are so rare, that job descriptions tend to "fish" everywhere

...and, of course, all the best programmers are in their heart and core, Perl programmers ;)

> I can't imagine a firm that size having zero Perl programmers.

I fear it's not a matter of size but age. I started working in a relatively new company (started in 2009) that has a few thousand employees and we have less than 20 perl scripts in the whole codebase.

map{substr$_->[0],$_->[1]||0,1}[\*||{},3],[[]],[ref qr-1,-,-1],[{}],[sub{}^*ARGV,3]

I'm not so sure about that. Maybe not a lot of project work, but there's Perl in odd places on the Internet. They probably don't want to hire contractors just to figure out what's going on. Also, they may also be using Perl for portable scripts they need to distribute to a number of different environments. Really, none of those other languages are BETTER than Perl for that and Perl is highly likely to be already installed in a lot of Linux and Unix systems.

While all of that is true there is an irrational hostility toward Perl that sometimes makes people choose other options even when Perl is the best and easiest for a given task.

Maybe not a lot of project work, but there's Perl in odd places

Of course. I don't use Perl on the $applications (or should I say @applications) I'm working on; they're in C#, C++, Java. But I still use perl a lot, for crafting my own tools and one-off data munging jobs, etc. My point is, if "Google considers Perl a useful skill", it's not (I guess) because they have Perl projects they need programmers for. But ICBW, IOA. ;-)

they may also be using Perl for portable scripts

I am very skeptical.