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

[Dirk Koopman]

On Tue, 2006-08-08 at 15:19 -0500, Ian Malpass wrote:

> I'd still pause before applying for a job with "senior" in the title.

This is one of the perennial gotchas isn't it? What the HR people seem
to want is a 'senior', as in loads of demonstrable experience etc, but
only aged about 25 (so they're not too expensive).

Not that applies just now but, when one applies for these jobs (aged 52,
with 30+ years of "experience" [of, now, very carefully calibrated head
banging]), they throw one's application out 'cos you're "too old",
"won't fit in to the team" (not to mention: know too much, tell the
truth too readily, find out about people and things too easily). 

What they mean is: too expensive.

It seems to me that everybody wants really good perl people, but nobody
wants to pay for them. And that, sadly, is why perl is dying...

If there are no decent jobs, then there really isn't any incentive to
spend the time learning the language - and let's face it: to do it some
justice, one requires a fair amount of time writing stuff. 

Dirk