Cast not your Perl before swine?

[Mark Higbee]

Since when did Perl become a lingua archae?  If everyone is wanting you 
for a Perl job maybe that should tell you something
:)


Steve wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Just wanted to get a good discussion going on the merits of knowing
> and using lingua archae vs lingua franca.
> Lingua archae is my term for languages that once were popular but have
> been fading out of fashion and entered a general state of disuse.
> Languages such as Perl, RPG, COBOL, BASIC, FORTRAN, assembler and of
> course the list goes on and on.
>
> Lingua franca being languages which are so commonly used now that they
> are considered "essential" to know
> Some good examples are  C/C++ and to a lesser extent C# Java, Python,
> PHP and well thats about all off the top of my head.
>
> As a programmer myself, I'm finding that even though I don't use the
> archaic languages much if at all anymore,  having them on my resume is
> the chief reason for recruiters to come calling.  What I think is
> bothering me the most about it is that even though the majority of HR
> people are looking for these older languages, the companies themselves
> aren't using them, (with maybe the exception Perl for the purposes of
> porting apps away from Perl)  however they are generating a rather
> large percentage of the calls I'm getting.
>
> Is it worthwhile then to maybe spend some time brushing up on these
> languages?  Or would it be better to "trim the fat" from my resume and
> drop these languages all together?
>
> Any thoughts?  Anyone using some of these older languages mind chiming
> in on what you use them for?  Are some of these older languages coming
> back into regular use?
>
> Anyways as always thanks for the replies.
>
> Sincerely,
> Steve
>
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