the "no good Perl jobs"/"no good Perl programmers" myth

[Peter Corlett]

On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 02:28:07PM +0100, Nicholas Clark wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 02:03:51PM +0100, Peter Hickman wrote:
[...]
>> It's less easy than you think. Thats why we are turning into a Java shop
>> :(

I note that the programming job advertised on your website says "we want a
Java expert who's seen a Perl script once" so it strikes me as unlikely that
you'll have a Perl expert apply.

> Curious. Your firm makes websites for clients? I had a private reply from
> someone at a firm saying that it's hard to find Perl people who are
> motivated to make websites for clients. Is this a general case?

I've come to the conclusion that web design firms are lousy places to work,
for reasons on which I don't wish to elaborate as I'll go off on a long rant
that's in danger of being career-limiting.

[...]
> Also, if there aren't decent Perl programmers who want to make websites,
> what stops said firms from recruiting smart programmers straight out of
> university (who don't yet know what they want to do) and teaching them
> Perl? I assume that with Java you can recruit your junior minions
> pre-trained.

Because a lot of employers seem to believe that universities are there to
provide pretrained staff. Hence they tend to migrate to Java, because that's
what the universities use as a teaching language.