Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[Avleen Vig]

You're not alone in facing this, and as a rule it isn't a
perl-specific issue. Perl's just at the leading edge of this.

1. There are fewer perl programmers than PHP programmers. There are
many reasons for this, they really don't matter that much. In the end,
perl doesn't get as much exposure and it becomes a vicious circle
where fewer and fewer people learn perl.

2. There are fewer programmers than there is demand. This is only
going to get worse. If you think it's bad now, wait 5 years.

3. The telecommute issue, which has already been brought up. The
biggest blockers to this are general fear of the unknown, and a poor
understanding of how to manage remote employees. It's really very
different to managing local ones.

Have you considered hiring existing programmers and teaching them, or
giving them time to learn perl? You should.
Or you'll have to massively up the price you're willing to pay for
someone (either an existing perl dev, or someone who will be able to
learn enough perl quickly and well). Simple supply and demand. Again,
it'll only get worse.

I'd encourage every company to hire more junior people and give them a
lot of training.
Go ask your HR / recruiting departments how much it costs to hire
someone. Don't be shocked when they come back and tell you the number
is over £20,000 *just to find someone*.
Spend that time and money on training instead - you'll help yourself
and everyone around you.


On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Duncan Garland
<duncan.garland at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>
> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
> struggling. It's a shame because we've got quite a lot of development work
> in the offing, mostly using Catalyst, DBIx::Class, Moose and the like.
>
>
>
> I spoke to the agent today and asked why so few people are coming forward.
> His view was that there aren't many Perl vacancies about at the moment, and
> even fewer people are interested in them.
>
>
>
> What are other companies doing about this?
>
>
>
> We've got several PHP projects on the go as well. It's easier to get local
> PHP programmers and when we can't, there seems to be a constant supply of
> good Eastern European programmers. Why isn't there the same stream of
> Eastern European Perl programmers?
>
>
>
> A second possibility is to cross-train experienced programmers from other
> languages into Perl. However, Perl has got itself such a reputation for
> being difficult to learn that the CTO winces whenever I suggest the idea.
> How have other companies got on when they've said that they will take
> experience in Python/Django or Ruby/Rails or whatever in lieu of experience
> in Perl/Catalyst? Was anybody interested and did they succeed?
>
>
>
> The third possibility is just to move some of the projects ear-marked for
> Perl into the PHP camp. I don't really believe that they can't be done in
> PHP, but it's a pity because they sit nicely with similar successful
> projects we've done in Perl. (A Catalyst-based system of ours won an
> industry-wide prize for "Best Digital Initiative" a couple of months ago.)
>
>
>
> All the best.
>
>
>
> Duncan
>
>
>
>
>