Perl or Linux

thoo

Which is a better/more relevant/more viable certification between Perl or one of the Linux certs? Or, are they very similar?

forkvoid

I'm not understanding... that's like asking if you'd prefer a Ford or an orange.

tiersten

Uh. It depends on what you're doing since Perl is a programming language and Linux is an operating system. Both are useful but how useful they are all depends.

hex_omega

I would say using Perl on Linux is the optimal situation.

thoo

As obvious as it is, I don't know much about tech certs. But I've been wondering about which type to pursue. I knew Linux is an OS, but I'm not very familiar with Perl.

tiersten

It depends on what you want to do. If you're a programmer writing say the backend to a website in Perl then the Perl certificate will probably be more useful to you than the Linux one. However, if you wanted to be a system administrator then the Linux certificate would be more important than the Perl one even though the Perl one would still be useful.

Forsaken_GA

linux, of course! Everyone knows perl sucks and you should use python instead!

(queue nerd jihad in 5... 4.... 3...)

forkvoid

I think this may be a case of fundamental misunderstanding...

Linux is an operating system.

Perl is a programming language. It runs mainly on Linux, but also on UNIX and Windows.

One has you on a systems administration track, while the other is on a developer track.

Which do you prefer? Systems administration or programming? The answer to that is the answer to your original question.

eMeS

Is there a certification for Perl?

MS

seuss_ssues

Is there even a Perl certification?

wastedtime

Via a quick google search for "perl certification" I only see one done through brainbench. I wouldn't say they are much of a resume building certification though.

Forsaken_GA

forkvoid wrote: »

I think this may be a case of fundamental misunderstanding...

Which do you prefer? Systems administration or programming? The answer to that is the answer to your original question.

Trust me, it doesn't hurt one bit for a sysadmin to know some perl. O'reiley even has a book called System Administration with Perl

forkvoid

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Trust me, it doesn't hurt one bit for a sysadmin to know some perl. O'reiley even has a book called System Administration with Perl

You misunderstand me. At an overview, one is sysadmin, the other is programming. A sysadmin is going to cross over for purposes of quick scripts, of course, but that's quite far from being a certified Perl guru.

Though, I have met many *NIX gurus with godlike powers of regex, sed and Perl.

UnixGeek

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

linux, of course! Everyone knows perl sucks and you should use python instead!

(queue nerd jihad in 5... 4.... 3...)

Only if you want to be able to actually read your code.

Forsaken_GA

forkvoid wrote: »

You misunderstand me. At an overview, one is sysadmin, the other is programming. A sysadmin is going to cross over for purposes of quick scripts, of course, but that's quite far from being a certified Perl guru.

No, I don't misunderstand you. I disagree with you. There's a difference

You're making a very black and white statement by saying that linux is for system administrators and perl is for programming, and any seasoned sysadmin knows better.
There's a very good reason why perl is installed by default on virtually any modern variety of unix, and why many distributions have written core system utilities as perl scripts instead of compiled binaries. Stating that perl is something only for developers is blatantly incorrect. Now, if you were talking about C, I'd probably agree with you. Why? Because sysadmins who used to write small C programs for use as their shims have, for the most part, migrated to perl!

Forsaken_GA

UnixGeek wrote: »

Only if you want to be able to actually read your code.

What's the old programmer saying? Something like "If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read!"

forkvoid

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

No, I don't misunderstand you. I disagree with you. There's a difference

You're making a very black and white statement by saying that linux is for system administrators and perl is for programming, and any seasoned sysadmin knows better.
There's a very good reason why perl is installed by default on virtually any modern variety of unix, and why many distributions have written core system utilities as perl scripts instead of compiled binaries. Stating that perl is something only for developers is blatantly incorrect. Now, if you were talking about C, I'd probably agree with you. Why? Because sysadmins who used to write small C programs for use as their shims have, for the most part, migrated to perl!

Actually, we're mostly in agreement, just not properly expressing ourselves(more my fault than yours, I'm sure). We'll just leave it at that.

Forsaken_GA

forkvoid wrote: »

Actually, we're mostly in agreement, just not properly expressing ourselves(more my fault than yours, I'm sure). We'll just leave it at that.

I may just be being a bit of a hardass, and I get the point that you're trying to make is that if you're more interested in being a programmer, you should lean towards perl, and if you're more interested in being a server monkey, you should get proficient with Linux, but the simple reality is that if you're going to be a sysadmin who's worth their salt, you're going to learn some programming. Every decent sysadmin is good with shell scripting, and at least one higher functioning programming language, whether it be perl, C, python, ruby, or what have you.

You will also learn to become proficient with regexs, sed, and awk as part of the trade, otherwise you'll drive yourself insane and go find something else to do. It took me about a month of parsing log files and trying to pull relevant information out of them to act on before I decided to learn bash scripting, sed, and awk because I tired of spending an hour to do something I could do in 5 minutes with a little voodoo, and from there I had to learn how to deal with complex regex expressions to get that 5 minutes down to about 2. I finally ended up needing a few utilities and small daemons that no one had written that did things exactly the way I wanted them, so I said screw it, and just wrote them myself, which meant that I had to learn some perl.

And even knowing all of that, I still drove myself insane and decided to go do something else, which is why I'm a network nerd now

earweed

seuss_ssues wrote: »

Is there even a Perl certification?

There are a couple but they're not well known. CIW has a perl certification which is part of the curriculum at WGU if you're on the programming track.
That being said, CIW is not a big resume building cert track. Look to my certs listed and you don't see me listing my CIW Foundations or CIW Javascript certs. I worked to get them but they just seem like space fillers.

vios1102

Hey!
Thanks all for your post

TheShadow

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Trust me, it doesn't hurt one bit for a sysadmin to know some perl. O'reiley even has a book called System Administration with Perl

Is that the one with the noose on the cover? Snake handlers run faster.

...but there may be some wisdom in those perls.

Now what did I do with my coat???

Forsaken_GA

TheShadow wrote: »

Is that the one with the noose on the cover? Snake handlers run faster.

...but there may be some wisdom in those perls.

Now what did I do with my coat???

Nope, it's the Otter book!