Hi Petra,
it is a bitter truth. Jobwise you will currently find more opportunities
with Perl than with REBOL. You will also find far more competent
competitors in the market.
If I may wonder out loud: How many people on this list know of job openings
that could be filled with someone who knows REBOL (no, I'm not looking for
a job ;-).
Frankly, Perl IMHO has a rather steep learning curve. By the time you
master Perl, you may find that REBOL has become far more marketable.
You could always easily build a Perl generating engine in REBOL and let
REBOL do your Perl work for you ;-).
To remain realistic, at this point in time I'd have a very bad conscience,
if I were to recommend that anyone pursue REBOL as a career decision.
If you can control which scripting or programming language you want to use,
if you would rather learn a superior scripting/programming language, if
this is going to be your first programming language, if you are willing to
take a gamble (careerwise that is), then definitely go with REBOL.
I don't have any empirical material to support this last claim, but I'm
willing to bet that you will probably find it much easier to learn Perl,
once you've mastered REBOL. REBOL will teach you how to program (provided
this is your first programming language) and it's much easier to figure out
other programming languages once you've mastered your first one. And Perl
certainly can't beat REBOL as an introductory language. You may find that
the time you spend learning REBOL will significantly reduce the time it
takes you to learn Perl.
Enough of being reasonable. Learn REBOL and apply for a job with REBOL Tech
;-). Now that's a career decision.
Elan
