After making another post about copyright (which always seems to put me in mind of the GNU General Public License), I was wondering if there are any hackers hanging out in the Alembic Club.
 
Mica told me that Alembic hosts a monthly Perl (Mongers?) meeting, so I know I'm not totally nuts.
 
So, any free software hackers out there?  Software developers?  Chime in with what it is that you do.
 
Inquiring minds (well at least one...) want to know.
 
Brad

What is Perl?

I'm a database developer in MS Access and MS SQL Server. Front-end, back-end, mostly modifications to base systems that my company sells, sometimes special stuff. We are moving towards an ASP.NET interface, but there will still be lots of legacy systems out there.
 
For a keyword module, I wound up creating my own search language and GUI for end-users so they wouldn't have to write endless subqueries in SQL. Great fun - but that doesn't happen too often.
 
We are a small branch and so the programmers get to handle trainings and support calls, so I do get out and about sometimes.

Sam; go here for an answer; or the short answer is that Perl is a programming language.

I'm a software engineer. I work primarily in large system operating systems and TCP/IP protocol suite.  
 
Keith

I'm also a softwarre engineer.  My skill set is based in RPG & CL running on the AS/400 (IBM iSeries) platform.  I work for a textile manufacturing firm and since I'm the only code writer, I get to work on (and screw-up) almost everything.
 
Ellery (Lowlife)

I'm a dinosaur!  I program in mainframe assembler, COBOL, Fortran, PL/1, on a CICS platform.  In the PC world I write in Assembler, Visual C++ Etc.

Mike,
When I say operating system does MVS come to mind? :-)
 
Not extinct yet, Keith

Wow, those languages still exist? As an Electrical Engineer studying in the '80's, I coded in C, Fortran, Pascal, BASIC, Assembler, PSPICE, MAthCad, etc. We had hi-tech Apple II-C's, 60's-vintage Perkin-Elmer dumb terminals running on an antiquated Burroughs UNIX mainframe, Z-80 and 8085(!) microprocessors (which I built and coded with assembler, then added external circuits to perform rudimentary tasks), and DOS-based 8088, 8086, and 80286 machines! Talk about a dinosaur! I got thru college with a 8086-clone NEC V-10 based PC running DOS @ 10MHz with 640k RAM, monochrome monitor, with two 1.2M 5-1/4 floppy drives (NO hard Drive)!!!! Alright, I did have a costly HP LJII-P laser printer, so my print-outs looked head-and-shoulders above the other guys who had hot-rod 286 and 386 computers, but only had $100 Star dot matrix z-fold feed printers, LOL!
 
Good thing I specialized in Power Systems (hasn't changed significantly since the '20's) and am in Construction Management, LOL! I can hardly remember my DOS commands, nevermind how to write code!

Keith.  
It's OS390 now ;-) still the same though. For the record, like Mike I'm also a dinosaur, looking after the Bank of Scotlands' VTAM network. (although I also support the mainframe IP stacks)
 
Graeme

I guess this makes me a childhood dinosaur - I got started on Apple II (later Apple C) with some kind of Basic, then I briefly moved on to a BBC/Acorn. Much later, I became quite an expert in writing macros for WordPerfect 5.1 to automate lay-out chores for catalogues, and finally I got into databases. Training? Mostly informal.

Graeme,
Actually it is z/OS but I'm tired of learning new acronyms every time a marketting person hiccups. :-)
I never worked VTAM development, started off in DFDS (now called DFSMS) for MVS and VS1 doing device error recovery, SIO exits and SYSGEN. Then moved to MVS TCP/IP architecture followed by IP Printway (I was partially responsible for it's predecessor NPF). I was also one of our companies rep's on the IETF TN3270 Work Group and did TN3270/TN5250 stuff.  
 
Keith

for what it's worth, VTAM is now Z/OS communications server and I'm no longer a sysprog, instead, they like to call me a 'Senior Technical Consultant' whatever that is ;-)
 
Graeme

I have to look back and laugh sometimes.  In 1984 I had the same COBOL code running on IBM, Burroughs, Unisis, Amdahl, Honeywell, HP, and DEC.  Then C, the portable language came along, which could only run on an IBM PC!
 
The machine of the time was the IBM System 390.  Only the biggest companies had the brand new 3030s.

Thanks, Dave, it's all over my head but at least I know what it is now.
 
Sam