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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