monday morning pick me up

james@mastros.biz james at mastros.biz
Mon Apr 3 13:42:28 BST 2006


On Mon, Apr 03, 2006 at 10:07:01AM +0100, Simon Wistow wrote:
> I'm hoping that people who don't usually post to the list might respond 
> - the views of a vocal minority (with 700+ people subbed the 30-60 odd 
> people who post most are very much in the minority) are pretty well 
> known already and are therefore not that interesting (in this context 
> anyway).
In my case, at least, the comments on the blog entry do a pretty good job of
covering the situation.

I see TPF as mostly a money sink.  Donations seem to go in, and very little
comes out.  So far, I've yet to give any money to TPF, but then again, I've
yet to have a job that consisted primarally of writing perl.  A few years
ago, they put money into funding the time of several perl6 people, but they
haven't seemed to do much since.  Funding Nick Clark certianly seems like a
step in the right direction, though.

I /would/ like to see a respectable perl certification that I could get and
put on my resumé,but I don't see it as terribly likely to happen.  I do
/not/ want to see people respecting a "certification" that means "I paid
money to get this certification", but I don't think there's too much danger
of that happening.

I think that Perl people in general focus too much on high-end perl jobs.
I've no idea how to get started.  I attended Petdance's talk on the matter
at a YAPC::NA a few years ago, but it left me clueless as to how to get a
/first/ programming job, only how to get a /next/ programming job.  Thus, I
don't want a certification that says "I've worked in the field for five
years", or "I have disposable income".  The first is redundant, the second
is irrelevant.

(I suppose, technically, if I've been to a YAPC then I've given money to
TPF, but I don't see it that way, really.  I gave money to the YAPC
orginizers.)

> 1. Do you think your company would pay to become more involved in Perl? 
> Do you think they want you (them) to be more involved in Perl at all?
NA.

> 2. Do you feel that the TPF and the Perl 'cabal' is too US centric? Note 
> I'm not criticising the sterling work the TPF does, just trying to guage 
> the vox populi.
No, I don't.  Having lived in the US, UK, and Germany, I don't think TPF
really does more in the US.

> 3. I've had lots of mail about having problems hiring good Perl people. 
> Either as someone trying to get a job or someone trying to hire - what 
> have been your problems? 
Everybody seems to want the world.  Five years work in the field.  A degree.
Know C, C++, Java, C#, the President.  Oh, and are willing to move, and
program themselves out of a job every other week.

	-=- James Mastros


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