On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 03:39:04AM -0500, Tom Metro wrote: > For me, popularity matters for two reasons: > > 1. If you like Perl enough that you'd like it to be all or a big part of > your day job.
If Perl per se matters to you that much, then you should find some way to make it your day job. Find a new employer, start your own business, whatever it takes. s/Perl/(Bike Riding|Gardening|Cooking|Painting|Teaching|Filmmaking)/; as appropriate. There is nothing magical about Perl programming that makes it so very different than other pursuit. > But now there seems to be mounting evidence (if you follow job postings) > that it is no longer viable to market oneself as a Perl developer. IT is still a very young industry. We have barely 50 years of experience to figure out where dedicated IT folks fit into business. Just because it was possible to be a full-time "Perl Developer" a few years ago does not mean that those market dynamics were stable or sustainable. On the one hand, you can say that the kinds of opportunities during the boom were a "natural state of affairs". Most people look at the boom as an abberation, especially in terms of hiring and staffing practices. I would also argue that there never was a time when being a "Perl Developer" was sufficient. Perl has always been sought as one of a cluster of related skills: Perl + system administration, Perl + CGI Perl + testing, Perl + databases, Perl + networks, etc. In that respect nothing much has changed, except that the focus is less about the tool (Perl) and more about the fundemental skills and specializations. Z. PS: Ditto to what David said. _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list [email protected] http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
