<rant>
It all depends on who you work for. Some few managers only care if the job gets done. They could care less if you stick pins in dolls, or program in perl/Jiva(pronounced Jive-a)/Python/VB/.NOT/whatever. As long as what they ask for happens on time.

The rest(most) of the managers out there however, like to intimately dictate what stylish/buzzwordish/obviously better/gave a better kickback, tool to use in every case.

I think this is indicative of most of the management I've seen over the last decade. To prove the point, I think Sun knew who they were really selling to.

I have to give the guys at Sun credit. Those are some smart mofo's. They created Java and made a "compiler" for it. Does it compile to machine code? No. It compiles to something that still needs to be interpreted. Did everybody buy into it. Hell Yea? Is it expensive? God Almight, does it cost money. Make any sence? Nope. Is it even a "fast" language, development or execute wise.... I say No (some might disagree)

I got lucky for the last 3 years and had the 1st type of manager. I get stuff done, he looks good, I look good. Does anybody even know the work is done in perl. Nope. Does anybody really care. Nope.

As for colleges, decisions on what languages to teach seem to be dictated by the same retarded facilities in most companies. Someone, somewhere, who is "important", and lacks the large knowledge base which should be required, makes the decision on what will and won't be taught. </rant>

Please keep in mind, this is only an opinion. It's all rant because I've been less happy at work lately.

Sincerely,
An old time C programmer who like the pain
Smiles

PS. I don't miss waking up from drooling on my keyboard at two in the morning because I was trying to debug a large C program. I work about 6 hours a day 5 days a week and I intend to keep it that way, unless I start working for myself ;)