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Re: The future of Perl?

by PerlSufi (Friar)
on Nov 10, 2014 at 17:40 UTC ( [id://1106728]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to The future of Perl?

I feel like it is necessary for me to respond to a couple different topics of this thread because I don't feel like enough input has been given from perl new-comer's. Normally, I am too busy programming perl to give lengthy responses to perlmonk's threads, but today is an exception.

I am coming up on only 2 years of being a professional perl programmer. I look up to many of you like a nerdy fan boy. This year was my first YAPC, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Although a few people on my team don't like perl and just do it for the paycheck, I think perl certainly has some kind of future. Do I think it is good to know other languages? Of course. But perl is certainly my first go-to in getting things done. Teaching myself Bio Informatics, I go to perl. Doing Euler problems, perl.

What do I think will contribute to securing a stronger future in perl?

First, you guys. Especially all you veterans who responded to this thread- and the ones who didn't or are too busy. It would take me all day to list your names, you know who you are. Do not underestimate the impact your presence and advice has on new-comer's like me. You're basically my heros. I nearly crapped my pants when I met Karen Etheridge this year at YAPC.

As choroba said, contribute to CPAN. What have I done? Nothing huge, but here is one example: http://search.cpan.org/~perlsufi/Locale-Country-OFAC-0.1.0/lib/Locale/Country/OFAC.pm ..and other ideas currently in development as I write this..

Other than that, set individual goals, learn more, and continue to contribute to CPAN. I'm too new to have much of an opinion about Perl 6, but it looks interesting.

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Re^2: The future of Perl?
by sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Nov 13, 2014 at 02:26 UTC

    Most of all, I think that it makes no sense to say that you are a “professional <<language_name here>> programmer.”   You are a professional programmer, period.   Perhaps, if you are “only two years in,” you have not yet been obliged to dive into many other language systems ... outside of University, that is ... but that day will swiftly come, and then it will come again and again, until you no longer think about it much.   It simply becomes something that you do.   It becomes something that you know with certainty that you can do, and, yes, it is a market advantage.

    One thing that you’ll see is that pretty much all of these language-systems are far more similar than different.   (And, on top of this, there are other systems that are truly different, such as Prolog.)   As the gamut of languages that you have “seriously used” continues to expand, it does become easier.

    And BTW ... this is one characteristic of this business that I have always enjoyed.   Language-design, and the principles of “how to make a piece of silicon do what you want it to do” in general, have always been topics of particular interest to me, and the opportunity to learn “yet another one” is something that I look forward to.   (I guess all those years of reading BYTE Magazine ... an APL interpreter in flowchart form ... Robert Tinney’s Pascal’s Triangle cover and all of that ... rubbed off on me somehow.)   I don’t just do it because somebody else told me that I had to, nor necessarily paid me to do it.   To me, the topic is both challenging and intellectually intriguing, and it’s cool if you can make a living at something that is also, in part, your hobby.

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