It has been more than 3 years since I did any real time programming in Perl. I should not call me a Perl expert anymore. I realized it last week while interviewing a candidate for an opening in my team. I couldn't come up with real time requirement in Perl to understand the programming expertise of the candidate. The maximum questions I could ask are:

* Howto find if an hash key exists
* Difference between chomp and chop functions
* Parse /etc/passwd file and put in hash reference
* Howto dereference an Hash
* One liner script requirement

There were days when I argued with my Manager that Perl is a best scripting language on planet, compared to Python. However once I started learning Python and understanding it's simplicity I changed my stand, or I should say "I stand corrected". In python, most of frequently used modules come by default, while in Perl we should run around CPAN repository even for simpler things. Now I can not even think to go away from Python even for simplest reasons. Especially with "ipython" for my rescue, I could keep up producing python code of good QUALITY in no time.

It is understandable why it is easy to find a guy familar with Perl scripting language, than a guy familiar with Python scripting language. The development teams in most companies still use Perl scripting language especially for reporting purposes. That is one of reason, why we still depend on guys who know Perl. I strongly believe, it would be very easy to make him to code in Python quickly as long as he know the basics of a scripting language. But the problem is, most of these guys have worked extensively in Perl-CGI and only that. Sadly most of them don't even know how to debug Apache logs for script errors. Especially with the guys working for Services company, the situation is worse. The sterotype reply is: Sorry, I do not have permission to do it! How to Install a Perl Package? Sorry, I do not have permission to do it!