4 ms·
You might as well suggest learning COBOL. Yes, it's lucrative maintaining all those old apps. But where's the satisfaction? And really, companies are going to
by sailormoon 17y ago
You might as well suggest learning COBOL. Yes, it's lucrative maintaining all those old apps. But where's the satisfaction?
And really, companies are going to look at you strangely if you say "1 year Perl experience". They'll think "why on earth is someone learning Perl in 2009". No, go with one of the newer languages - python or ruby.
- chromatic 17y ago> "why on earth is someone learning Perl in 2009" Pick any of copious documentation, more jobs available than for Python and Ruby combined, availability on almost any platform you're likely to encounter, a testing culture unmatched by any other language of which I'm aware, and ~19,224 individual distributions freely available, installable, and usable from the CPAN.
- sailormoon 17y agoYeah, but what kind of jobs? Building something new? Look, I am not attacking Perl. I am just stating the reality that in 2009, a Perl job will be maintenance. There is nothing new. This might be very insulting but that's the simple fact. I know of about 4 big new projects happening in this city using Rails. I don't know about other cities but i assume it is similar. Learn Rails, right now, is my sincere advice, offered in good faith.
- chromatic 17y ago> Yeah, but what kind of jobs? Building something new? Look at the job data. It's publicly available. This is how statistics work. > I know of about 4 big new projects happening in this city using Rails. I don't know about other cities but i assume.... This neither how statistics work, nor facts.
- sailormoon 17y agoDid you forget to paste in the statistics/facts that show me how wrong I am?
- preaction 17y agoBy your logic, we should not learn C because it's older than Perl and Python (why on earth is someone learning C in 2009).
- sailormoon 17y agoNo, C is different. Look, Perl was "the" fad language back in the 90s. No-one is building anything new with it today. So if you learn Perl, expect to be hired to maintain others' crappy sites. C is different because it's the foundation everything else is built on. I'm not trying to dis Perl here or anything; I'm just trying to state the nature of reality as I see it, so lower your spear, friend ..
- Blend 17y agoPerl has great potential. The reason Rails and other newer languages are getting attention is solely because they're new. Rails is easier to start programming in by people who'll never understand the difference between a constant and a variable in their life. Other languages are invisible to them. Does that mean Rails is bad? No! Every language has its merits and demerits. It's easier for a programming to learn them all than fight for a single language. Perl has its own strong points, just like any other language. "No-one is building anything new with it today." Generalizations. So easy to make, and so imprecise nevertheless.