I find fault in the presumption that more of us are unemployed than using Oracle. ;-)

More seriously, and leaving aside the transient/permanent issue (though I do think it's an important one), I personally find the connection between "solving technical problems encountered while using Perl" and "solving technical problems encountered while using MySQL" to be stronger than the connection between the former and "seeking employment based on my existing Perl knowledge." Obviously, both are stronger than the connection to "seeking employment as a database administrator," but that particular question is not on the table.

This is somewhat tangential to the point I was trying to make, however, since the antecedent of "this" was not SkipHuffman's post (which I cheerfully ignored until it became a subject of controversy), but rather "nurturing small businesses", which I positted in response to dragonchild's apparent assertion that Perlmonks had an affirmative obligation to encourage entrepreneurship. With which assertion I (as you might guess) disagree.