Re: Money vs. Perl

You are inviting feedback on your career decision. Let me give you my feedback from >20 years experience of commercial IT.

I spent two years at a company where I barely could use Perl on real applications.

It's sad but true, that Perl is perceived in many organisations as merely glue, or a 'scripting language'. You can write full scale applications in perl, and it's very good at doing the job. However, you may encounter cultural resistance, especially when introducing the concepts of CPAN and open source development.

I started on a new job last January. It is *only* Perl.

This clearly sounds good to you. It sounds as if you approve of and want a job that is 100% Perl. This doesn't suit everybody, as many people would view the programming language as unimportant, and would look to using the job as an opportunity to gain skills learning a new programming language - enhancing the resume.

Yesterday I was approached by another company wanting to hire me. They made it clear from the start that my salary would be higher and that I would have everything I would need. (basically, they have 150 employees, and none of them is using Perl ATM; yet, they suddenly realized they need a Perl programmer for a project they've inhereted).

Sounds like they're desperate. What is the future of that project? Do they want to migrate it away from perl, because that is how it appears.

I was wondering if there's anyone else here doing this, abdicating from money for doing what they like, that being Perl programming.

There are other considerations. In particular, what is the working environment like? How much say do you have in design decisions? Do you get the opportunity to work on and with CPAN modules?

If you are looking to author CPAN modules in work time, beware of the intellectual property issues involved - this also depends to a certain extent on your country's laws - see tilly's experience for one unfortunate episode.

--
I'm Not Just Another Perl Hacker

Comment on Re: Money vs. Perl

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Re^2: Money vs. Perl
by cog (Parson) on Mar 16, 2005 at 11:51 UTC

many people would view the programming language as unimportant, and would look to using the job as an opportunity to gain skills learning a new programming language - enhancing the resume.

This is also important to me. Being able to use Perl all day long will clearly enhance my Perl skills, and working as a consultant, jumping from client to client, is giving me the chance to work with several Perl tools (ATM I'm using Bricolage and HTML::Mason, but in a month from now I'll probably be a DBI man).

What is the future of that project? Do they want to migrate it away from perl, because that is how it appears.

It sounded like they were trying to get a new client. The project had already been around for a while and it seemed as though it was here to stay (the client is an international telecommunications company, which is selling the project worldwide).

There are other considerations.

Regarding the working environment there, it probably wouldn't be bad, because they wanted me to meet the client before making a decision; as for CPAN modules and such... I'm not sure... the place I'm working at now surely approves of those kind of things :-\

Anyway, they called me again yesterday... I decided to let the door opened for a future oportunity, so they might be calling me again some months from now, if they still have a need for Perl...

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