More advice about becoming a freelance Perl programmer

[Peter Corlett]

On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 01:05:16PM +0000, David Cantrell wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 06, 2013 at 06:54:31PM +0000, Peter Corlett wrote:
[...]
>> Don't typecast yourself as a Perl developer, as that just limits what roles
>> you can do. If you can do Perl, you can quickly pick up Python or Ruby, for
>> example. (Or Scala if the JVM/.NET is your kink.)

> I disagree, a bit. If you can do perl you can pick up *the basics* of python
> or ruby etc pretty quickly. To become as productive as you are in perl (well,
> OK, I don't know AJ - to become as productive as someone with a few years
> experience in perl) will take a lot longer. You need to learn the quirks of
> the language, the toolchain and its quirks, where to get libraries, how to
> work effectively with libraries, and of course what libraries to use and how
> to tell a good quality library from bad without wasting time by trying to use
> them.

I agree entirely. There was an implied "go and learn the languages then cast
your net wider", rather than just making scattergun pitches for random jobs and
then picking up a copy of "Visual Parrot For Muppets In 24 Nanoseconds" if one
succeeds.