Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[Kieren Diment]

When you're employing a builder, if the house is steel framed, you might want to employ someone with experience with the framing system.

If you're building a steel framed housing estate, you will need to familiarise your crews with the technology, but that's a small amount of overhead compared to the effort of delivering the project.

On 14/05/2013, at 11:49 AM, Avleen Vig wrote:

> You're not alone in facing this, and as a rule it isn't a
> perl-specific issue. Perl's just at the leading edge of this.
> 
> 1. There are fewer perl programmers than PHP programmers. There are
> many reasons for this, they really don't matter that much. In the end,
> perl doesn't get as much exposure and it becomes a vicious circle
> where fewer and fewer people learn perl.
> 
> 2. There are fewer programmers than there is demand. This is only
> going to get worse. If you think it's bad now, wait 5 years.
> 
> 3. The telecommute issue, which has already been brought up. The
> biggest blockers to this are general fear of the unknown, and a poor
> understanding of how to manage remote employees. It's really very
> different to managing local ones.
> 
> Have you considered hiring existing programmers and teaching them, or
> giving them time to learn perl? You should.
> Or you'll have to massively up the price you're willing to pay for
> someone (either an existing perl dev, or someone who will be able to
> learn enough perl quickly and well). Simple supply and demand. Again,
> it'll only get worse.
> 
> I'd encourage every company to hire more junior people and give them a
> lot of training.
> Go ask your HR / recruiting departments how much it costs to hire
> someone. Don't be shocked when they come back and tell you the number
> is over £20,000 *just to find someone*.
> Spend that time and money on training instead - you'll help yourself
> and everyone around you.
> 
> 
> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Duncan Garland
> <duncan.garland at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
>> struggling. It's a shame because we've got quite a lot of development work
>> in the offing, mostly using Catalyst, DBIx::Class, Moose and the like.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I spoke to the agent today and asked why so few people are coming forward.
>> His view was that there aren't many Perl vacancies about at the moment, and
>> even fewer people are interested in them.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> What are other companies doing about this?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> We've got several PHP projects on the go as well. It's easier to get local
>> PHP programmers and when we can't, there seems to be a constant supply of
>> good Eastern European programmers. Why isn't there the same stream of
>> Eastern European Perl programmers?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> A second possibility is to cross-train experienced programmers from other
>> languages into Perl. However, Perl has got itself such a reputation for
>> being difficult to learn that the CTO winces whenever I suggest the idea.
>> How have other companies got on when they've said that they will take
>> experience in Python/Django or Ruby/Rails or whatever in lieu of experience
>> in Perl/Catalyst? Was anybody interested and did they succeed?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> The third possibility is just to move some of the projects ear-marked for
>> Perl into the PHP camp. I don't really believe that they can't be done in
>> PHP, but it's a pity because they sit nicely with similar successful
>> projects we've done in Perl. (A Catalyst-based system of ours won an
>> industry-wide prize for "Best Digital Initiative" a couple of months ago.)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> All the best.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Duncan
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>