use Perl

• Re: 6 years PERL experience (Score:2)

  by davorg (18)

  What you need to realise is that the vast majority of the Perl (or PERL!) programmers in the world have no contact at all with the Perl community. Most programming languages don't have a community like ours so a new programmer won't necessary go looking for it. Most Perl books don't emphasise the community aspect of Perl, many of the most popular ones don't even mention it.
  
  I'm not at all surprised by the number of Perl programmers who happily exist outside of the community. I _am_ surprised by the number o
  • Re: 6 years PERL experience (Score:2)

    by jdavidb (1361) on 2004.11.22 10:15 (#36201) Homepage Journal

    I would still put a lot more stock in a programmer who is "plugged in" to the community. Anyone who's got six years of experience with Perl or PERL (hey ... I got six years!) could benefit extremely from contact with the community. We all know there are good books and bad books out there. Most programmers do their learning from those books. Those who are in contact with the community have additional sense about how to evaluate those books, as well as the accelerated reinforcement of learning that contact with the community brings.

    As to the original question, my first instinct would be to junk a resume that said PERL, but I see the point that the applicant might just be doing that to get past ignorant HR desk jockeys. In the end the only real way to know is to evaluate the guy.

    But then, Andy Lester [perl.org] says you should Ask the Headhunter [asktheheadhunter.com] and have the applicant do the job to get hired. If they can do the job, they're qualified, right?

    --
    J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers

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