It has been over half a decade since I was paid to code in Perl, having since moved on to Python amongst other languages. I use the past tense because this is all changing once again. Due to circumstances that are almost entirely personal-life related, I find myself moving on from Yorn after the past fifteen months of doing great things with wonderful, intelligent and foward-thinking people.
After months over two months of screenings, phone interviews and an on-site meeting, I have accepted an offer as Production Lead Engineer at Fanatics, LLC at their Conshohocken, PA facility. I'm going from working in a Python/Django environment for the past half decade plus into a more systems/internal middle-tier/core environment based on an old friend, Perl. And despite some of the issues which led to this change, I'm wholeheartedly looking forward to it, and here's why.
As we grown our personal knowledge in a specific discipline, in this case programming languages, our perspectives and approaches mature. When we step away from our comfort zone into some new experience (or language in this case) as I did professional when I moved on to Python as a requirement of Retail Expert Inc, CTO (at the time) Andrew Sernekos, I shifted mentally and learned the way of the Pythonista. As the years progressed it became the 'one true way' of thinking, which was fine given that my language dictates were in-line with my choices and professional tasks. I had put aside my TMTOWTDI (there's more than one way to do it) mantra from my Perl Monger/Perl Monkish days of yore.
Refreshing my skills back into the primary language through which more than half of my professional career was built, Perl, has opened my eyes in a way not previously possible. The memories I had of Perl with its heavily flexible manner/varieties of expression had originally left a negative taste in my mouth but now having disciplined myself cutting through Python, Groovy, Scala and others has proven to expand my view of what Perl truly holds in terms of power. With great power comes great responsibility and now with the modules from CPAN such as Moose and its derivatives (as an example), the future is looking quite fascinating again for me with a language that has been around now for 35 years.
Here's to the joys of the future and best wishes for the incredible team at Yorn as a sail on to my next contractual adventure.
