So here's my meditation for the week, inspired by this article over at infoworld: http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/21/08connection_1.html

It brings up the very salient point concerning "executive-level technology management holding scripting languages in disdain as not being “real” languages for day-to-day problem solving. While I am not yet fully in the workforce - being still stuck in college for better or worse - I see this bias repeatedly. The office environment that I work in is small enough that I am the only technology guru, giving me nearly free reign in my development and management techniques. However, in school I feel disdainful eyes piercing my back when I bring up a related Perl question in my various programming classes (none of which implement Perl, of course :(

So, how about it, ye Monks of the Ages: is this *really* a problem in the workforce? I like having the freedom to choose the *best* tool for the job, without being forced away from using a scripting language because of a code shop's unfounded belief that C++ is 'Holier Than Thou, Perl/Ruby/Python et. al.' Perhaps the most comical instance of this is in my C++ class, where we just finished writing a _massive_ homebrewed Calendar class that creates CGI output of various calendar items. I don't speak a word of a lie when I say I could have halved the length of source if I had implemented certain parts using Perl.

Cheers,
Lacertus

PS == Before you get the wrong impression, I infact love coding in C languages (call me a masochist if you will); it just seems rather *awkward*, if you will, in some circumstances.

(PS*2) == I know, that Title is a little much, and no, I'm not trolling. I just got done with a gouldern Philosophy paper, and my head is rife with gross violations in titular verbosity ;)

(PS*3) == I am aware that a C++ class is meant to teach one the intricacies of C++, not Perl, hence the class description. However, I can't help but feel that discussing parallels in different languages can only edify the mind...

------------------------------------
"There is more in heaven and earth
than is dreamt of in your philosophy"

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.