Perl outreach

[Kieren Diment]

On 26/11/2012, at 22:49, andrew-perl08 at mail.black1.org.uk wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 11:11:56AM +0000, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
>> 
>> What with having Copious Free Time recently, I've been attending
>> a fair few start-up and online tech meetups. They all have one thing
>> in common: people turn their noses up at perl. 
> 
> Can I make an analogy. I have spent a lot of time working on VMS. In theory I still regard it as a good OS but I don't think there is much work in it. People percieve VMS as running on VAXes and thefore old hat.
> In the same way there is a perception that Perl goes back to the .com era and Matt's script archive.
> 
> Maybe the analogy isnt perfect but it helped me..

We (me, a principal contractor and supported by a well known perl consultancy) are doing fairly sexy and interesting stuff on the latest and greatest hardware 95% in perl. It's a fun and interesting gig.  So I can't see the VMS analogy - I doubt there are any sexy new and interesting VMS gigs, while many perl shops I know of have weathered the GFC recessions rather well. 

On the other hand, theres a local (to me) business who it's clear to me and my friend on the inside that I'd be a really good fit for.  But they don't take perl seriously (their perception issue) for the most part which so far has created a pretty big barrier.