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I'm wondering if some people here struggle professionally with being, more than anything else, a perl programmer?

As one of the few Perl-only programmers on the site^*, I think I can shed some light here. Despite the fact that I put food on the table with Perl and only Perl, I am more than that. While I may not be as good with any other language, I know the concepts behind those languages. I don't currently know Java, but I could learn it very quickly. I don't know Lisp, but I plan on picking it up in the next month or two so I can teach my son how to program in Lisp.

The point is that I will learn any tool I need to learn in order to get the project done. Heck, that's how I learned Perl in the first place. I got hired, handed merlyn's book, and was banging out (crappy) code within the week. Same with SQL, Javascript, and any other tool I've ever used. The language isn't as important as the knowledge behind it.

Here's a good test - go look at the Pugs code. Not the P6 stuff, but the Haskell stuff. You're not going to understand it all, but can you follow the basic flow? If you can, you're ok. If you can't, you should really work on that.

*: I don't know Java, nor have I cared to learn. My C is rusty and my C++ makes a monkey cringe. I have worked almost exclusively in Perl, Apache, Javascript, and databases for almost 5 years and it doesn't look like it's changing anytime soon. In other words, I've never been paid to learn anything else, so I haven't bothered much.

My criteria for good software:

Does it work?
Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

In reply to Re: Professional perl by dragonchild
in thread Professional perl by mescanne

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