No, I don't feel better for making fun of people, and I don't in this case. It was funny, not ego-satisfying.

As I stated above, Jason was completely capable of writing this himself. Additionally, md5sum isn't very useful here.

The example shows how very quick it is to write something useful in Perl. C can do it equally well, and of course quicker, but it would have taken me longer to write just by time lost in installing an md5 implementation.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I think you have overestimated the amount of negative intent in my post. It was not posted to gloat (I have nothing to gloat about in the scenario) nor just to criticize. It was posted to start a bit of interesting discussion here.

I think, perhaps, I am an embarrassment in an entirely different way. Maybe I'm an embarrassment because of being "mean", although I do very kindly help many people learn and use Perl, for free, and almost never turn down a request for help, and those helpful attitudes usually extend beyond Perl. I was at least mean in a way not related to Perl directly. Perhaps this consultant was embarrassing to his company because he doesn't give the impression of them being capable and intelligent consultants as a whole, although, as repeatedly pointed out in this thread, impressions aren't everything.

I think your two posts here suggest you are a mean person as well. They are no more provoked than I was, yet they are entirely critical, while my post posed questions and tried to start discussion on the topic. I'm sorry for offending or angering you.