[Israel.pm] A surge in Perl job offerings

[Shlomi Fish]

On Tuesday 05 June 2007, Gabor Szabo wrote:
> Hi,
>
> as I can see there is a surge in Perl job offerings
>
> Yossi Itzkovich posted a job in ECI (in Petach Tikva)
> http://perl.org.il/pipermail/perl/2007-May/008706.html
>
> Shlomo Yona posted a job in F5 (in Tel Aviv)
> http://perl.org.il/pipermail/perl/2007-June/008735.html
>
> Aladdin (in Petach Tikva) is looking for a Perl developer
> http://www.aladdin.com/about/careers/jobDescription.asp?PositionID=198
>
> Qualcomm (in Haifa) needs a Perl contractor
>
> Checkpoint (in Tel Aviv) is looking for even more people
> http://www.checkpoint.com/corporate/jobs/israel/650.html
>
> so where are the Perl developers?
>

Good question. This topic was discussed to death here and elsewhere. I know 
for a fact that there's lack of almost all kinds of developers in Israel and 
to some extent elsewhere, but it's probably worse in Perl.

Here are some factors:

1. Workplaces don't give their workers adequate conditions. Either the pay is 
too low, but often the other conditions are bad - overworking them, not 
enough (or even non-existent) snacks, bad co-workers, unrealistic schedules, 
bad software management, too few paid vacation days, etc.

2. Workplaces cannot recognise good workers when they see them, or let them 
get lost in confusion, bureacuracy or politics (happened to me many times), 
and are too clueless to know how to keep them, and that they should in fact 
do their best to keep them.

3. Workplaces want their programmers to know Perl (or whatever) yesterday, 
instead of training bright and intelligent ones, and expecting them to grow. 
Now Perl does not have a hype machine, and actually got a lot of negative 
FUD, so few programmers seem to learn it now not as part of their jobs.

4. The online Perl resources are often inadequate for pointing someone who's 
interested in learning the language into the right direction. See for 
example:

http://www.sparkthis.com/2006/02/slides_the_hack.html

and apply it to the central Perl sites.

The people who maintain these sites are often too busy, too prejudiced, too 
ignorant, and/or too arrogant to do something about it or to give people who 
can or want to help.

----------------------

So that's the current situation. What can we do about it? Train more Perl 
programmers? Make more publicity? I'm all for ideas, but I'm much more for 
doing something about it. I've been doing the best I could, but often met 
with arrogance, ignorance, prejudice, and general contempt. I'm still using 
Perl because I like it, and because it works best for what I want to do. I'm 
aware that I was rather off to a bad start, but people should be more 
professional than that. I have a lot of time on my hands, and I feel like I 
could make a better use of it as far as the Perl world is concerned, if only 
I was treated with less prejudice.

I could go on to pointing the usability, marketing and design problem of the 
central Perl sites all day, but that won't help us get them fixed. And if 
most active Perl enthusiasts believe that they are OK, and keep linking to 
them or referencing people to them, then it won't change. It's a very bad 
state, but you reap what you sow, so you shouldn't wonder why Perl is not 
more popular.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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Shlomi Fish      shlomif at iglu.org.il
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

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