...how to respond to this...
How about this:
To Me My Perl Brothers!!! We must unite against this scourge and rid the
world of this army of ignorant Anti-Perl programmers!!! (who keep company
with the evil Orc cousins, the dreaded Cobols!)
Romani and List:
Wow, I didn't think that I would incite a riot. I merely wanted to gain
some better understanding on the issue, maybe even use this mailing list as
a support group **grins**. I appreciate the support Romani but before this
goes further I think I should clarify that I was not applying for a Job at
the University, I was thinking of applying for a spot in their C++ program
as a student (it is a certificate program...Perl should have one
too...hehe, ok ignore that). Also I was not denied anything yet, I merely
emailed in to verify whether or not Perl would meet their "1+ year High
Level Programming experience" prerequisite. My point was not whether I was
qualified to enter the program, but that his assumptions on Perl compared
to all the other languages sounded very inaccurate and outdated. I do not
know enough about C and what I am missing by not learning it, so I wanted
to post my message to get some feedback on that. And I got some great
feedback.
But as far as emailing the University, well I already have. I responded to
them with some good information on why I thought the reviewer's "opinion"
may be inaccurate and referred them some web pages that might make them
understand what I was talking about. I also let them know that I am now
looking into their C program, just so that they know I am keeping an open
mind. And then I emailed Tim Maher (CEO Consultix, Perl Instructor) who is
on their advisory board and exposed him to the situation. Hopefully he can
speak to his colleagues.
I understand the cause, and the frustration. I do not know if I am behind
the idea of exploding their emailboxes, but I am open to any suggestions as
to what else I could do to help these people understand...what they
don't. Maybe I can suggest that they all sign up for the Perl Certificate
course that they are teaching along side C++....
Jon of Arc
At 03:29 PM 8/17/01 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Jon and List:
>
>Sometimes in life it is necessary to fight back, not because it is a good
>exercise, but rather to try to correct injustices and misguided minds. In
>this particular case Jon has been deprived of access to an employment
>opportunity, just because there is an uninformed individual, in a position
>with decision_making power, with an unjustified bias against a beautifully
>efficient programming technology such as Perl and, as most of our people
>think, the bias is most probably grounded in hard_rock ignorance.
>
>It is Ok to express our disgust in this case by talking among ourselves
>and fuming because of the injustice against one of our peers, and against
>the truth. However, it is not OK to stop at that point. I believe that
>some civilized reaction is needed, not only to try to correct an abuse,
>but also to start being noticed and begin spreading some well deserved
>respect for the PERL technology. What I am suggesting is doing a writing
>campaign similar to what is done when Senators and Representatives need to
>be convinced of something, for them to take a stand for or against that
>something.
>
>Instead of only tring to comfort one another among ourselves, with all
>sorts of valid arguments as we have been doing so far, let us write
>separate, individual e-mails, with our own e-mail addresses, to the
>Admissions Counselor at U.W. (Jon can probably find out the e-mail address
>and let us know it) to make him notice that there are many Perl experts
>who disagree with the opinion expressed by the Reviewer, and inviting such
>person to a technical discussion with respect to the high level qualities
>of Perl. The messages would have to be corteous, polite, to the point,
>and clear on their intent. I would suggest something like this: (even if
>everyone chose the same pattern, it still would be OK):
>
>Dear Counselor:
>
>I have been informed that my friend and colleague Jon Acierto has been
>denied consideration for a programming position at U.W. on the basis that
>"he only has 2 years of experience with the Perl language" and not in
>other computer programming languages. The C++ Applications Reviewer has
>also expressed the opinion that Jon's experience is not even comparable to
>someone with a knowledge of COBOL!!.
>
>As a knowledgeable and experienced programmer of Perl and other languages
>such as ............I want to not only disagree with the Reviewer's
>opinion, but I also want to call your attention to the injustice of
>denying a qualified individual an opportunity, on the basis of unjustified
>opinions of someone who evidently does not have an adequate knowledge of
>the Perl language. The opinion expressed by your reviewer that "PERL IS
>NOT A HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE" is completely unfounded because of the following:
>....................................................................................................................................................................
>.....................(your arguments in favor of
>Perl)....................................................................................................
>.....................................................................................................................................................................
>Furthermore, Mr. Counselor, I am hereby requesting that you provide me in
>your answer to this message the name and e-mail address of the Reviewer,
>since it is my intention to invite that person to a friendly discussion
>about the merits of the Perl programming language, with the intention of
>trying to convince him/her of the wrongfulness of his/her
>assumptions. Your response with the requested information will be greatly
>appreciated.
>
>Respectfully Submitted
>
>Your Full Name
>Your E-Mail Adress
>
>Let us not get just get mad. Let us get even in a civilized way.
>I believe action is needed in this case. Who knows, they may even
>reconsider Jon for the position.
>Any takers?
>
>Keep well
>
>Fred A. Romani
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Jon Acierto
>Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 9:48 AM
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: PERL IS NOT A HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE
>
>Hello Guys It's me again,
>After getting all the feedback from this maillist on my "High Level"
>question AND going to an online dictionary and finding out that Perl Does
>fit the definition of a high level language, I get this from the Admissions
>Councellor at the U.W. ext.:
>
>Jon, thank you for your inquiry.
>I sent your description of your programming background to the C++
>application reviewer and received this input:
>"i have to agree with will's assessment. perl is not a high level
>language. it amounts to a scripting language. simply having 2 years of
>working with perl says nothing about whether he has worked on more complex
>problems or has developed the programming skills necessary to understand
>and solve such problems from ground up. in addition, does he have - in any
>language - the understanding of more advanced data structures...with 2
>years of serious cobol for example should bring familiarity with files,
>records, and other such data types."
>Jon, if you have the prerequisite background as described above, then you
>will need to document and support it in your C++ application. Otherwise,
>you will need to decide how you want to expand your programming experience.
>In the UWEO program offerings, the C program would help you do this.
>
>
>Can someone please help me explain to these people that writing Perl for 2
>years says about as much of my ability to program and understand "advanced
>data structures" and having worked on "more complex problems" as spending
>those 2 years with C. Am I wrong? I know that if I describe to them the
>OOP in Perl that I've done as well as all the work I've done with files and
>records with data extraction (binary and ascii) that they would
>understand. But is it just me or do these people not know anything about
>Perl?
>
>
>Jonathan Acierto
>Perl Programmer
>Ocentrix Inc.
>206.691.7603
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>A famous linguist once said:
>"There is no language wherein a double
>positive can form a negative."
>YEAH, RIGHT
>
>
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