use Perl

"I'm a drunk. Alcoholics go to meetings".

Not being career programmers, or not having the professional mindset set in, Perl programmers don't go to meetings. This is a vague generalization and such is in valid except to the degree that it is true. (Read: there is a tendency for Perl programmers, tend not to go to meetings).

To be a true professional, you must have had your fun ruined. Rather than considering your own amusement or even your sanity, you only consider the client, the requirements, the corporate structure, the company, the business plan, the investors, stock performance, the purity of the branding... well, you know. Selfishness means asking yourself what you need from a work arrangement to be able to maintain sanity. It can also mean doing what you need to do to maintain pleasure from your work. Professionalism systematicly strips this away unless your pleasure is making lots of money and being a big cheeze, which are the only professionalism-compliant ways to enjoy a job.

Meetings aren't fun. They're boring. Meetings are agenda driven. The driving agenda is someone elses agenda.

Case in point: There is a Java Users Group, JUG, in town. Approximately 5 to 10 times as many people show up for meetings there as do at Phoenix Perl Mongers. No, this isn't proof, just evidence. If you must argue with this, argue with whether or not this constitutes evidence (which would be stupid) or argue that the evidence supports the premise (which would be annoying but not out of the realm of reason) or argue that my logic is flawed (logic isn't something you make up, there are rules to the game). These people show up to meetings that are primarily a sales presentation by the meeting sponsor, but in exchange, they get free food and sometimes drinks afterwards, at a resturant. So they're suffering someones agenda. I suggest as an assumption to this argument that they suffer this agenda because their goal is not fun but professionalism - they want to put their group membership on their resume, make contacts, and actually learn technical things - three things that Perl programmers have little desire in.

Suffering through a presentation about how to use a software producting supporting Java requires patience. Admitting that your programming skill and professional standing could be improved requires modesty. Getting off your duff and going to a social event requires energy.

In short, I submit to you, my patient reader, that Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris (false or otherwise) prevents many (or even most) Perl programmers from going to such activities as Perl Mongers. (Suggesting that this is "wrong" would imply that none these things happen to more than a small degree as my conclusion is that the effect applies to many, meaning numerous, Perl programmers - I did not say "everyone" or "always". Note that "many" or "most" is a disjunction and an argument against this should apply to both cases, not either. For some reason, pointing out flaws in things that people like, no matter what the intention, seems to cause people to abandon logic).

-scott