[Mpls-pm] Food for Thought, on Perl in the Minneapolis marketplace..

Gypsy Rogers gypsy at freeq.com
Wed Oct 21 17:45:44 PDT 2009


I totally agree that the caliber of programmer who chooses perl over php is
higher, the problem is that when you think about it from the perspective of
a business owner.

If you need a small project done (web forms and the like) then the php guy
who can knock these things out are about $25k/yr, the equivalent perl guy is
gonna run you $35k.

A guy doing a job for $45k/yr in php, will cost you $60k/yr if he is a perl guy.

and so on and so forth....

As a technologist I know the perl guy will have better practices and build
better long term code, but as a business owner who has been doing web stuff
for a very long time I know that 1) Most projects get written and left to do
the same thing over and over again and never touched again until the next
consultant comes along declares it crap and replaces it anyway, and 2) when
you have an extra mouth to feed between gig's cheaper mouths hurt less.

So, while I haven't gone the route of moving from perl to php I've been
seriously considering it mainly because it's easier to find low end workers
to do most of the grunt work when you are a php shop then a perl shop, and I
can totally understand this trend.

Kinda like those old frosted mini wheat commercials, the technologist in me
loves perl, the business owner see's php as the better bang for the buck.




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