From the perspective of someone who would like to become one of the next generation of good Perl programmers, a strategy that I have in a semi-formed state is this:

Develop code and modules and post such to peer-reviewed sites such as Perlmonks and CPAN. Then you have a body of work that you can point prospective employers to and say "Here's a number of examples of code that I have produced and you can easily see what the community thinks of my contributions." Plus, a prospective employer could observe the tenor of your interactions with others in the Perl community and gain some insight into your interpersonal and communication skills. Something that I have been impressed by at Perlmonks is the courteous manner in which many knowledgeable monks respond to SOPW's. There's relatively little of the "RTFM, you fool!" type of response to poorly formed questions, the sort of which I have noticed at some language forums.

Naturally this would just be a starting point for the employer in their evaluation of a prospective employee, but I think it would be a good start. Of course, my contributions aren't really to the point yet where I'd offer myself up as a candidate based on them :); due to time constraints (current job, family, etc..) but it's something I want to pursue.

If someone asked me for a source of Perl coder job candidates, I would definitely point them to Perlmonks, and tell them to use the evaluation process as I have outlined. What do other monks think?

In reply to Re: Where are future senior programmers coming from? by Scott7477
in thread Where are future senior programmers coming from? by tilly

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