The document describes the author's journey from being a sysadmin to becoming a Perl programmer. He was bored and unfulfilled in his sysadmin role. He discovered Perl and was excited by its power and expressiveness. Attending a YAPC conference further sparked his interest, where he met smart people and found a job offering. He gained experience through freelance jobs and preparing for bigger opportunities. Financial crisis led to his sysadmin role ending, pushing him to fully pursue a career in Perl development, which he found exciting and well-paid. He now works remotely and promotes Perl through conferences and sponsoring new programmers.

1. My way to becoming a Perl
programmer

2. Sysadmin in a small company
+ Interesting at first (before everything was set
up)
- Just boring after that
- No progress
- No perspectives
- Started to hate other people
+ Had a time to learn something new

3. I already knew some Perl and liked
something about it...
● magic (JAPHs are usually unreadable puzzles,
but they are working Perl programs!)
● eliteness (kind of)
● power of expression
– do in 1 line what you would do in 5 lines in other
languages
● ease of use (when you know it)

4. Searched for Perl on the Internet
● found videos of YAPC::Russia 2008
● spent a lot of time watching them
– it was so exciting!
– I never realized people would do something similar!
– smart people!
● realized that the next YAPC::Russia will be in
about week or two and registered
– and it was free to visit!

5. YAPC::Russia 2009
● Came to it
● Heard a lot of interesting talks
● Met many wonderful and smart people
– still was too shy to talk with most of them :)
● but found someone who hired anyway =)
● Played the “imagine the future” game
● Was very excited
● Wrote a small blogpost about it (never wrote blogposts
before)

6. Small freelance jobs
● Learned bits of DBI, CGI, Sympa, TT, LWP,
CGI::Application, etc.
● Prepared for something bigger
– read the books
– tried to do small testing tasks
● But still needed a kick in the ass to leave my
job

7. Traces of financial crisis of 2008
● Many people in Russia were fired
● 2 sysadmins is too many for the small company
● especially when everything works like a charm =)
● And the other sysadmin was the boss'es
nephew =)

8. Choosing the job
● Delphi or C# or Java programmer?
● Sysadmin in another company?
or probably...
● Perl developer?!?!?
– it's so exciting!
● and well paid =)

9. Choosing the job
● Delphi or C# or Java programmer?
● Sysadmin in another company?
or probably...
● Perl developer
– give one, please!
– remotely

10. Working remotely
● Couldn't / didn't want to relocate
– Even to Amsterdam (and booking.com was
probably also small at that time)
– or to Moscow
– or somewhere else (Odessa? :)
● and no one invited me at that time =)

11. Promoting Perl is good!
● Organize more wonderful conferences and
workshops!
● Sponsor newbies!
● Create more Perl jobs!!!
– hire newbies (also remotely)
– teach them to program Perl
– guide and appreciate them

12. Thank you!
Ilya Chesnokov <chesnokov.ilya@gmail.com>
Kiev, YAPC::EU 2013