It is always difficult to "let go" and post your little snippets, particularly if you have had bad flaming experiences in other forums. But this is very unlikely to occur here. As long as it is properly worded and formatted, it is almost certain that it will be appreciated by the community. So don't be afraid! Contribute to PerlMonks, and you will start learning a lot more than you possibly could just by watching.

--ZZamboni

I'm sorry to disagree with you guys on this one. I don't beleive there is such a thing as a trade secret when it comes to programming. I tend to think that the what is being done is the industry weapon, not how you do it. Especially when it comes down to snippets! I mean, I could collect all of the snippets on this site (and there are plenty of good ones) and package them all neatly in a little bundle. If you don't know where to use them, knowing how to use them doesn't do much good either.

I understand that certain companies require employees to sign contracts stating that everything they produce while working under the flag of the company can be considerded intellectual property of the employer, but I mean, what are the chances of someone pattenting a certain snippet of code? There is very little that's new under the sun these days...

I may be just rambling as usual, but I don't think there is a need for code protection anymore these days. Its not how you do it, but what you are doing. Just my R$ 0.02 as usual.

#!/home/bbq/bin/perl
# Trust no1!

You don't really disagree with us, you disagree with our employers and their lawyers (the true enemy of innovation). I work for a raving paranoiac. Our current corporate policy requires flatulence to be run by the legal dept. prior to expulsion. When I was hired I held up starting the job until I got certain concessions on an intellectual property agreement I was required to sign. There is nothing new under the sun in the programming world but there is always greed. It seems as though employers want to benefit as much as possible from their technical employees creativity in and out of the workplace. I keep a journal with time and date stamped entries documenting what I did where and for what. I do this to prevent anything I develop on my own time from being challenged by my employer. What I do on my own time is (as far as I am concertned) Open Source. But to be fair to my employer I abide by his rules when I am in his building. Once I leave the office I am a free ( speech, not beer :-) )agent. "Licenses.....We don't neeed no steeeekin' licenses....

Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat, although as soon as the module that my company wrote makes its way to CPAN (It's been accepted already, we just have to package it correctly) I plan on writing a review of it.

Regards,
spectre

I'm in a different boat than you and perhaps a lot of other monks out there. I'm a sysadmin, the only sysadmin in this company. What I've written, I've done it just to make my life easier. When my Boss asks how I did what I did, I simply say "ritual human sacrifice". That's all they would believe anyway. Most of my Perl code was written at home, debugged at the office, and then put into place. Perl is my "hobby language" and I have no current restrictions about giving away the code. If I were to develop particular code for this particular company (I'm doing that now in C++) I'm bound by my employment agreement that that code belongs to the company, not to me. It's per their spec, using their data, and their machines. I have no problem with that. I certainly would not want anyone to violate any agreements with their employers about code distribution. "Licenses.....We don't neeed no steeeekin' licenses....

i've only one thing to say to folks in this sort of totalitarian situation:

LEAVE AND GET A NEW JOB

i know this advice can't help all those poor souls enslaved under draconian employment contracts, but if i can induce just one anti-corporate epiphany, i've done my job as a subversive.