Perl Brother:
I like your call to arms! Someone once said that you can catch more flies
with honey than with vinegar. That may be true, in the case of vinegar that
is, but if you are intent on catching flies (don't ask why anyone would want
to catch files, just accept the premise please), then you can obviously
catch more flies with...ahem...pooh pooh than you ever will with honey (and
you can quote me on that). :))
Dean Theophilou
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 4:12 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Jon Acierto; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: PERL IS NOT A HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE
...how to respond to this...
How about this:
To Me My Perl Brothers!!! We must unite against this scourge and rid the
world of this army of ignorant Anti-Perl programmers!!! (who keep company
with the evil Orc cousins, the dreaded Cobols!)
Romani and List:
Wow, I didn't think that I would incite a riot. I merely wanted to gain
some better understanding on the issue, maybe even use this mailing list as
a support group **grins**. I appreciate the support Romani but before this
goes further I think I should clarify that I was not applying for a Job at
the University, I was thinking of applying for a spot in their C++ program
as a student (it is a certificate program...Perl should have one
too...hehe, ok ignore that). Also I was not denied anything yet, I merely
emailed in to verify whether or not Perl would meet their "1+ year High
Level Programming experience" prerequisite. My point was not whether I was
qualified to enter the program, but that his assumptions on Perl compared
to all the other languages sounded very inaccurate and outdated. I do not
know enough about C and what I am missing by not learning it, so I wanted
to post my message to get some feedback on that. And I got some great
feedback.
But as far as emailing the University, well I already have. I responded to
them with some good information on why I thought the reviewer's "opinion"
may be inaccurate and referred them some web pages that might make them
understand what I was talking about. I also let them know that I am now
looking into their C program, just so that they know I am keeping an open
mind. And then I emailed Tim Maher (CEO Consultix, Perl Instructor) who is
on their advisory board and exposed him to the situation. Hopefully he can
speak to his colleagues.
I understand the cause, and the frustration. I do not know if I am behind
the idea of exploding their emailboxes, but I am open to any suggestions as
to what else I could do to help these people understand...what they
don't. Maybe I can suggest that they all sign up for the Perl Certificate
course that they are teaching along side C++....
Jon of Arc
At 03:29 PM 8/17/01 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Jon and List:
>
>Sometimes in life it is necessary to fight back, not because it is a good
>exercise, but rather to try to correct injustices and misguided minds. In
>this particular case Jon has been deprived of access to an employment
>opportunity, just because there is an uninformed individual, in a position
>with decision_making power, with an unjustified bias against a beautifully
>efficient programming technology such as Perl and, as most of our people
>think, the bias is most probably grounded in hard_rock ignorance.
>
>It is Ok to express our disgust in this case by talking among ourselves
>and fuming because of the injustice against one of our peers, and against
>the truth. However, it is not OK to stop at that point. I believe that
>some civilized reaction is needed, not only to try to correct an abuse,
>but also to start being noticed and begin spreading some well deserved
>respect for the PERL technology. What I am suggesting is doing a writing
>campaign similar to what is done when Senators and Representatives need to
>be convinced of something, for them to take a stand for or against that
>something.
>
>Instead of only tring to comfort one another among ourselves, with all
>sorts of valid arguments as we have been doing so far, let us write
>separate, individual e-mails, with our own e-mail addresses, to the
>Admissions Counselor at U.W. (Jon can probably find out the e-mail address
>and let us know it) to make him notice that there are many Perl experts
>who disagree with the opinion expressed by the Reviewer, and inviting such
>person to a technical discussion with respect to the high level qualities
>of Perl. The messages would have to be corteous, polite, to the point,
>and clear on their intent. I would suggest something like this: (even if
>everyone chose the same pattern, it still would be OK):
>
>Dear Counselor:
>
>I have been informed that my friend and colleague Jon Acierto has been
>denied consideration for a programming position at U.W. on the basis that
>"he only has 2 years of experience with the Perl language" and not in
>other computer programming languages. The C++ Applications Reviewer has
>also expressed the opinion that Jon's experience is not even comparable to
>someone with a knowledge of COBOL!!.
>
>As a knowledgeable and experienced programmer of Perl and other languages
>such as ............I want to not only disagree with the Reviewer's
>opinion, but I also want to call your attention to the injustice of
>denying a qualified individual an opportunity, on the basis of unjustified
>opinions of someone who evidently does not have an adequate knowledge of
>the Perl language. The opinion expressed by your reviewer that "PERL IS
>NOT A HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE" is completely unfounded because of the
following:
>...........................................................................
............................................................................
.............
>.....................(your arguments in favor of
>Perl)......................................................................
..............................
>...........................................................................
............................................................................
..............
>Furthermore, Mr. Counselor, I am hereby requesting that you provide me in
>your answer to this message the name and e-mail address of the Reviewer,
>since it is my intention to invite that person to a friendly discussion
>about the merits of the Perl programming language, with the intention of
>trying to convince him/her of the wrongfulness of his/her
>assumptions. Your response with the requested information will be greatly
>appreciated.
>
>Respectfully Submitted
>
>Your Full Name
>Your E-Mail Adress
>
>Let us not get just get mad. Let us get even in a civilized way.
>I believe action is needed in this case. Who knows, they may even
>reconsider Jon for the position.
>Any takers?
>
>Keep well
>
>Fred A. Romani
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Jon Acierto
>Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 9:48 AM
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: PERL IS NOT A HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE
>
>Hello Guys It's me again,
>After getting all the feedback from this maillist on my "High Level"
>question AND going to an online dictionary and finding out that Perl Does
>fit the definition of a high level language, I get this from the Admissions
>Councellor at the U.W. ext.:
>
>Jon, thank you for your inquiry.
>I sent your description of your programming background to the C++
>application reviewer and received this input:
>"i have to agree with will's assessment. perl is not a high level
>language. it amounts to a scripting language. simply having 2 years of
>working with perl says nothing about whether he has worked on more complex
>problems or has developed the programming skills necessary to understand
>and solve such problems from ground up. in addition, does he have - in any
>language - the understanding of more advanced data structures...with 2
>years of serious cobol for example should bring familiarity with files,
>records, and other such data types."
>Jon, if you have the prerequisite background as described above, then you
>will need to document and support it in your C++ application. Otherwise,
>you will need to decide how you want to expand your programming experience.
>In the UWEO program offerings, the C program would help you do this.
>
>
>Can someone please help me explain to these people that writing Perl for 2
>years says about as much of my ability to program and understand "advanced
>data structures" and having worked on "more complex problems" as spending
>those 2 years with C. Am I wrong? I know that if I describe to them the
>OOP in Perl that I've done as well as all the work I've done with files and
>records with data extraction (binary and ascii) that they would
>understand. But is it just me or do these people not know anything about
>Perl?
>
>
>Jonathan Acierto
>Perl Programmer
>Ocentrix Inc.
>206.691.7603
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>A famous linguist once said:
>"There is no language wherein a double
>positive can form a negative."
>YEAH, RIGHT
>
>
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