Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[James Laver]

On 15 May 2013, at 23:04, Tom Hukins  wrote:

> I'm pleased that you enjoy your involvement in our community, but
> please don't spread the rumour that anything we used to do stopped
> happening.
> 
> With a small group of volunteers and a large group of followers and
> mailing list subscribers, reality sometimes disrupts our aspirations.

Indeed, I've been volunteered to organise the next tech meet. Now if we could 
just find a venue…

James

Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[Tom Hukins]

On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 10:37:08PM +0100, Duncan Garland wrote:
> I attended most of the London PM tech meetings until they stopped.

I'm pleased that you enjoy your involvement in our community, but
please don't spread the rumour that anything we used to do stopped
happening.

With a small group of volunteers and a large group of followers and
mailing list subscribers, reality sometimes disrupts our aspirations.

We get distracted and occasionally overwhelmed, but we don't stop.

Tom

RE: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[Duncan Garland]

Hi,

Thanks for all the replies. Interesting thoughts on telecommuters. Also
interesting that nobody sees too much of a problem cross-training into Perl.

I didn't mention the company because I was (and still am) using my personal
email and it didn't seem appropriate. Anyway, the company is Motortrak
(www.motortrak.com).

We're located in Thames Ditton and we do websites and backend systems for
chains of motor dealers. We've doubled in size to about 70 in the last three
years. In the last six months we've opened an office on the west coast of
the USA to partner the existing one on the east coast. Earlier this week we
bumped up our nominal presence in Australia to a proper office of half a
dozen people. We can reasonably claim to be doing quite well.

Thames Ditton is a bit difficult to reach from certain directions because of
the way the Thames loops. However, the upside of that is that it doesn't
feel like the big city. Plenty of greenery, nice riverside pubs etc.
Generally a good working environment.

The CMS and the inventory management system (IMS) are written in PHP and
doing very well. The CMS serves thousands of dealers and we have contracts
in place which guarantee that the IMS will do at least a thousand. There are
other PHP projects in the offing. Any idea that PHP is a toy or that Perl
programmers are automatically worth more than the better PHP programmers has
to be justified.

The feeds are all written in Perl, as are several other systems. The
service-booking system won the Automarket award for "Best Digital
Initiative" earlier this year. It's a Perl system and is the first one on
which we've used modern Perl modules such as Catalyst, DBIx::Class,
Template::Toolkit and the like. We developed it over three years so there's
at least 5 man-years of effort in there. Based on the success of the
service-booking system and the general momentum of the company we are almost
certain to be doing three or four more similar projects this year. Each will
be big enough to keep the interest of an experienced programmer or provide a
real challenge to a less experienced one. Hence we need more people (just
one ticket signed at the moment). They don't have to be done in Perl, and
they won't be done in Perl at any cost, but they sit logically in the Perl
camp. As Lead Perl Programmer, I've got to make the case.

We haven't been passive in our search. We saw it coming. Perl programmers
have been rare for a while. It took some time to find our last Perl
programmer whom we picked up from the BBC. We try to be visible in the Perl
community.

We sponsored the last London PM and I ran a beginner's workshop on TT. I
attended most of the London PM tech meetings until they stopped. I
contributed to the Catalyst Advent Calendar this year.

I offered to mentor one of the students from Rick Deller's Perl Academy.

I attend Southampton PM meetings. I contacted Portsmouth University and
there is a possibility that we may be going in for beer and sandwiches with
their computer club in the autumn. (It's only a possibility because I'm not
sure the other mongers are as keen to do it as I am.)

I've also tried to contact Kingston University. I didn't get a reply and I
confess that I haven't tried again yet.

In spite of all that, I've only had five CVs across my desk this time. None
were strong candidates. One we rejected outright. A second told me at the
end of his telephone interview that he had just started a contract. Numbers
three and four weren't present at the appointed times for their telephone
interviews and the agency couldn't trace them either. We skipped the
telephone interview for number five and rushed him in for a face-to-face
with a view to hiring him if he was half-decent. He wasn't. He just wasn't.

When we want a PHP programmer, we only have to whistle.

Anyway, that's the background. Thanks for all your replies. A fascinating
read.

Duncan

-Original Message-
From: london.pm-boun...@london.pm.org
[mailto:london.pm-boun...@london.pm.org] On Behalf Of Mark Stringer
Sent: 14 May 2013 10:18
To: london.pm@london.pm.org
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

We sent out an Intern Wanted posting to heads of careers departments at
various colleges and Unis. This was filtered through to the students and we
had a number of promising looking applicants contact us. We're a startup, no
track record, tiny budget, no benefits and all we had to our credit was wfh
and flexitime. We had an intern signed in 4 days, and our pick from a number
of decent looking ones.

Sure, we're having to train him up a bit, but overall he's proving
beneficial.

With a decent sized budget for a full time employee, I'd have thought it'd
be easy to get a high standard of applicant. They may not be experienced in
Perl, but some experienced developers are willing to cross-train IME.

Also worth pointing out that now is about the best time to be finding
Uni/College leavers... they're all wondering what they're going to be doing
c

Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[David Cantrell]

On 15/05/2013 19:42, Abigail wrote:

On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 12:06:33AM +0800, AJ Dhaliwal wrote:

Damian (and Dave cross) disagree with you on that one. A week with them
is worth more than a year's actual experience.

Doubtful.

There's a lot more to making a good programmer than knowing the language,
just like being a spelling bee doesn't make you a good novelist.

When I'm looking for a good Perl programmer, whether the candidate knows
Perl or not doesn't matter much (of course, if the candidate claims to
know Perl, (s)he better shows (s)he knows the language); for a good
programmer, learning a new language should not be a problem.


Learning a new language shouldn't be, but becoming productive in it is. 
Being productive isn't much about the language. It's the quirks of the 
toolchain, learning where to get third party libraries, what The One 
True Solution is to common problems and how to be productive with those 
One True libraries, knowing where to ask for help and who to trust 
(don't ask london.pm, for they will answer "yes", "no", and "buffy"), 
and so on.


I'm sure I could pick up python or ruby or javascript or whatever is 
fashionable in a week, but becoming *productive* in them would take 
months of constant use, and probably years of constant use to become as 
productive in them as I am in perl.


Which is why I have put little effort into learning them.  It's so 
offputting to have a simple problem, which I know I could solve with 
twenty or thirty lines of perl in five minutes, and find that because I 
don't know the tools I get frustrated and give up after half an hour in 
python.


--
David Cantrell | Minister for Arbitrary Justice

More people are driven insane through religious hysteria than
by drinking alcohol.-- W C Fields

Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[Abigail]

On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 12:06:33AM +0800, AJ Dhaliwal wrote:
> Damian (and Dave cross) disagree with you on that one. A week with them  
> is worth more than a year's actual experience.


Doubtful.

There's a lot more to making a good programmer than knowing the language,
just like being a spelling bee doesn't make you a good novelist.

When I'm looking for a good Perl programmer, whether the candidate knows
Perl or not doesn't matter much (of course, if the candidate claims to 
know Perl, (s)he better shows (s)he knows the language); for a good 
programmer, learning a new language should not be a problem.



Abigail

Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[Aaron Trevena]

On 15 May 2013 18:28, Uri Guttman  wrote:
> the real problem is getting shops to PAY for any sort of training. i was
> producing damian classes successfully for 3 or so years. then the economy
> bottomed out (this was before the great recession) and training budgets
> dried up. they still haven't come back yet from what i have seen. i would
> love to pull together damian training and client sponsorship but that didn't
> work when i tried it.

You mean people are complaining about how hard it is to hire just the
right people but nobody ponies up the cash to train anybody? Surely
you jest sir!

;)

A.



-- 
Aaron J Trevena, BSc Hons
http://www.aarontrevena.co.uk
LAMP System Integration, Development and Consulting

Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[Uri Guttman]

On 05/15/2013 12:06 PM, AJ Dhaliwal wrote:

Damian (and Dave cross) disagree with you on that one. A week with them
is worth more than a year's actual experience.

On 14/05/13 22:10, Uri Guttman wrote:

also even a week of training by damian (or dave cross) won't give
actual experience. the trainees might do better but still have a steep
learning curve in the real world.


real world experience can't be taught in a classroom. i know damian's 
courses well as i produced a bunch of them in boston. you can only use 
some of the things you learn in a given shop. house rules, idiot 
cow-orkers, bad code base and such all conspire to slow down the 
application of what you learn in classes. in classes you don't work with 
real code much, you don't have to work around existing code, etc. that 
is what real world teaches you.


as for training these days, o'reilly school of tech has a good set of 
online perl classes (written by peter scott). you have to code up 
problems in their sandbox to pass each test/level. they have online 
people to review and help you out. not saying this is better than a well 
taught class but it is another way to do it and they do it well. also 
being online, remote and self paced it has some advantages over a classroom.


the real problem is getting shops to PAY for any sort of training. i was 
producing damian classes successfully for 3 or so years. then the 
economy bottomed out (this was before the great recession) and training 
budgets dried up. they still haven't come back yet from what i have 
seen. i would love to pull together damian training and client 
sponsorship but that didn't work when i tried it.


uri

Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[AJ Dhaliwal]

Damian (and Dave cross) disagree with you on that one. A week with them 
is worth more than a year's actual experience.


On 14/05/13 22:10, Uri Guttman wrote:
also even a week of training by damian (or dave cross) won't give 
actual experience. the trainees might do better but still have a steep 
learning curve in the real world.

Announce: ITMegaMeet, 1 June 2013

[Peter Haworth]

I seem to have forgotten to spread the word here about the upcoming 
ITMegaMeet in Bristol, but better late than never.


This event is a free one-day conference with speakers invited from all 
of the local technical user groups, with the aims of making those groups 
more visible to potential members, and getting people from different 
disciplines together. We have talks lined up on Perl, Ruby, Javascript, 
Scrum, testing, UX, CouchDB, Scala, RPM, CERN's LHC and more. The 
schedule is getting almost full to bursting now, but we still have room 
for lightning talks, so if you want to present as well as listen, let me 
know.


For your no money, you also get fed at lunch time and at the after 
party, where there's an open bar and DJ. I know that a few London.pmers 
attended the first one last year, and they can hopefully back me up on 
it being a worthwhile trip.


Although it's free, you do have to register in advance, with the 
deadline being this Friday. More information and the registration form 
are on the website: http://bristol.itmegameet.co.uk/#a_pmh1wheel



I hope to see some of you there,

Peter

Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[Chris Jack]

Joel Bernstein j...@fysh.org wrote
>
> And if you turned up without your Trema Finance Kit did you have to do it
> in your underwear?

I wear underwear on all my assignments however... I am cycling off road from 
London to Paris on behalf of the
British Heart Foundation at the end of June. 

I will guarantee to do it commando if I get £100 in sponsorship from this list. 
All donations will be doubled through matching funds.
 
You can sponsor me here: http://www.justgiving.com/Chris-Jack4
 
Chris
  

Re: A simple and elegant job application

[Nick Cleaton]

On 15 May 2013 11:21, Travis Basevi  wrote:

> http://www.mythic-beasts.com/cgi-bin/job.pl
>

Ours is better:  http://quiz.gambitresearch.com/

Re: A simple and elegant job application

[Will Crawford]

If you can paste the question into google, and then paste the answer
back into the application form quick enough to not be told "too slow",
there might be a place for you ... in the next Star Wars movie. As a
Gungan Jedi.

On 15 May 2013 12:23, Martin Robertson  wrote:
> google fail :
> https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=726+*+333+%2B+592+-+994
>
>
> On 15 May 2013 12:13, Will Crawford  wrote:
>
>> I did try entering "What base is this in?" but it said "Wrong."
>>
>>
>> On 15 May 2013 12:00, DAVID HODGKINSON  wrote:
>> >
>> > On 15 May 2013, at 11:21, Travis Basevi  wrote:
>> >
>> >> http://www.mythic-beasts.com/cgi-bin/job.pl
>> >
>> > This is SO base 10-centric.
>> >
>>

Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[David Cantrell]

On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 12:48:50PM +0200, Paul Weaver wrote:

> I'm looking forward to my next long haul day flight as I'll get a change to 
> get my teeth into writing some new code (Perl of course). The lack of 
> distraction from email and phones is really useful, but it makes network 
> development a bit harder, and I get funny looks when I string two laptops 
> together on the plane!

That's one of the reasons my latest laptop has eleventy bazillion
gigglebytes of memory, so I can run loads of VMs with a private notwork
between them.  Of course, since buying it my little networky project
has been decidedly on the back burner, due to laziness :-)

-- 
header   FROM_DAVID_CANTRELLFrom =~ /david.cantrell/i
describe FROM_DAVID_CANTRELLMessage is from David Cantrell
scoreFROM_DAVID_CANTRELL15.72 # This figure from experimentation

Re: A simple and elegant job application

[Martin Robertson]

google fail :
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=726+*+333+%2B+592+-+994


On 15 May 2013 12:13, Will Crawford  wrote:

> I did try entering "What base is this in?" but it said "Wrong."
>
>
> On 15 May 2013 12:00, DAVID HODGKINSON  wrote:
> >
> > On 15 May 2013, at 11:21, Travis Basevi  wrote:
> >
> >> http://www.mythic-beasts.com/cgi-bin/job.pl
> >
> > This is SO base 10-centric.
> >
>

Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers

[Paul Weaver]

I work in a variety of offices around the world. This year my most frequent 
office has been Jerusalem, about 12 days there, and a couple more up the road 
in Ramallah and a bit further in Gaza, but I've been to another 8 or 9 on top 
of that. 

I'm almost up to 70,000 miles this year, and on my 51st flight of the year 
while I write this. 

When I'm not abroad my commute is down stairs into the study. 

My effective line manager has an insane schedule. He's in Moscow this week, 
Delhi next week, Singapore after that then Bangkok. This helps a lot, as my 
real line manager hasn't got a clue about the stresses of (economy class) 
travel.

I'm hoping to be Europe bound for the next 2 weeks, with just day trips or 
maybe an single overnight, but Delhi, Joburg, sydney, Jakarta, shanghai, new 
york, kabul, washington and Singapore all need my attention in the next few 
months. 

I'm looking forward to my next long haul day flight as I'll get a change to get 
my teeth into writing some new code (Perl of course). The lack of distraction 
from email and phones is really useful, but it makes network development a bit 
harder, and I get funny looks when I string two laptops together on the plane!

On 14 May 2013, at 23:43, "Philippe Bruhat (BooK)"  
wrote:

> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 03:54:07PM +0100, Aaron Trevena wrote:
>> On 14 May 2013 15:20, Ben Vinnerd  wrote:
>>> On 14 May 2013 15:02, Dominic Humphries  wrote:
>>> 
 50 miles? Luxury! I have to do sixty! :)
 
>>> Indeed. My previous contract was 223 miles, each way! (I became Travelodge
>>> guest of the year during that gig!! lol)
>> 
>> 223?
>> 
>> Pah! my last contracting gig was 682 miles each way (Threemilestone,
>> Cornwall to Groningen, Netherlands)
>> 
> 
> I sense a contest starting...
> 
> I've been a full-time employee for 6 years, and the office is (according
> to Google maps) 932km (579 miles, so I do not win the distance contest)
> away, in a different country, with no shared borders (yeah, not counting
> the one in the Pacific). Do I win?
> 
> And I'm not working from home either, because I can go and sit in a
> local office (opened last year, full of real (non-dev) people, part of
> the company network; before that, the company rented one for the two
> devs working from Lyon), which is about 20 minutes walk from home.
> 
> Surely there's a badge for "I go to the office either by foot or by plane"?
> 
> On the other hand, we've not hired any remote dev since 2009.
> So I can probably claim the "endangered species" badge too. ;-)
> 
> -- 
> Philippe Bruhat (BooK)
> 
> All life affects us... even that which is far from our gaze.
>(Moral from Groo The Wanderer #59 (Epic))

Re: A simple and elegant job application

[Will Crawford]

I did try entering "What base is this in?" but it said "Wrong."


On 15 May 2013 12:00, DAVID HODGKINSON  wrote:
>
> On 15 May 2013, at 11:21, Travis Basevi  wrote:
>
>> http://www.mythic-beasts.com/cgi-bin/job.pl
>
> This is SO base 10-centric.
>

Re: A simple and elegant job application

[DAVID HODGKINSON]

On 15 May 2013, at 11:21, Travis Basevi  wrote:

> http://www.mythic-beasts.com/cgi-bin/job.pl

This is SO base 10-centric.

A simple and elegant job application

[Travis Basevi]

http://www.mythic-beasts.com/cgi-bin/job.pl

I'm not at all related to this by the way, I just found it interesting 
(and satisfying). It was linked to from the Raspberry Pi blog at 
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3935 if anyone is actually curious 
about more information.


:Travis




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Reply to list hits! Reply to list hits!

[drforr]

--more--
You feel embarrassed. Thanks for being easy-going about this. 
(Christine called early this morning)

This hasn't exactly been a banner week for me.

On 2013-05-14 23:49, drf...@pobox.com wrote:

On 2013-05-03 10:18, Christine Wong wrote:

Hello!
Hope everyone enjoyed themselves last night at the Perl meet up.
It was a very enjoyable experience for me.
For those who didn't get my contact details I am reachable on my
email addy:
christine.w...@squareoneresources.com
and my number is 0207 665 5813/0788 229 3884.
Please feel free to contact me if you are 1. Looking for new
opportunities or 2. Looking to hire :) 3. Just want a quick 
chat/catch

up.