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Re^2: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community
by thor (Priest) on Nov 22, 2005 at 15:49 UTC
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But that's the thing: in the cases you've given, the arrangement of letters is different, which would lead to different words. The difference between "perl", "Perl", and "PERL" is capitalization; their respective arrangements of letters is the same. I find it somewhat ironic that a trained linguist would have built in that much overloading into one word.
thor
Feel the white light, the light within
Be your own disciple, fan the sparks of will
For all of us waiting, your kingdom will come
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Being a linguist does not prevent one from wanting to make fine distinctions when such distinctions are useful. Being a linguist also means that you understand it's okay to ignore those distinctions when they aren't useful. Case distinctions are particularly nice when you want to have it both ways. I have several T-shirts in my closet that say PERL, and yes, that does bother me just a little. Nevertheless, I do not refuse to wear them because of that.
A linguist cannot afford to confuse utility with principle.
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I'm no linguist, so I might be just flapping my virtual gums, but it seems to me that when a given spelling means two or more different things in natural language, it's for historical reasons. For example, I'm sure that "dessert" was not designed to mean all of "a dry place", "a small meal after the main meal", and "to leave". It just kind of happened that way. I'd have to imagine that one of the finer points in learning a new language is distinguishing between words that are spelled the same. So, when it is said that it was intentional overloading of one spelling to mean multiple things, I have to scratch my head.
thor
Feel the white light, the light within
Be your own disciple, fan the sparks of will
For all of us waiting, your kingdom will come
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Impress me with how much you know, your attention to detail, and how you're the right person for the job. Don't try to impress me with distracting, inappropriate "creativity" that just looks like sloppiness. Take me seriously as a potential employer or team lead and I'll take you seriously as a capable professional.
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Conversely, if you weed me out based on esoterica, then perhaps we weren't a good match in the first place. Spelling it "PERL" does not a bad Perl programmer make.
thor
Feel the white light, the light within
Be your own disciple, fan the sparks of will
For all of us waiting, your kingdom will come
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LOL! When I used to do career counseling, my two favorites were "Resent Work Experience" and "Louts 1-2-3".
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What you're missing is that with that capitalization, you're either making a wiki entry, or you think that you're some kind of cool Java programmer. Not that there's anything wrong with that...;)
thor
The only easy day was yesterday
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