How well a PHP or Perl programmer paid comparing to Java

[Market Mutant]

I just wonder job selections, job openings and salary level of PHP programer
or Perl programmer comparing to Java programmers.

Is Java programmer's salary has a minimal of 60K in US? Are there many PHP
jobs?

 

[CountScubula]

I just wonder job selections, job openings and salary level of PHP programer
or Perl programmer comparing to Java programmers.

Is Java programmer's salary has a minimal of 60K in US? Are there many PHP
jobs?

Personaly, I don't see it as high as $60k. Don't get me wrong, there may be
a Java programmer making that or more. People get paid what thier worth,
unfortunalty, to any of my companies, Java is worthless. I would rather take
on two PHP programmers at $30k apiece

 

[Gregory Toomey]

Personaly, I don't see it as high as $60k. Don't get me wrong, there may
be a Java programmer making that or more. People get paid what thier
worth, unfortunalty, to any of my companies, Java is worthless. I would
rather take on two PHP programmers at $30k apiece

I just saw a manager's job in today's (Saturday) edition for the local
health department. It talked about a "Java, CORBA, N-Tier" architecture. I
read that as "slow, slower, slowest".

As someone who has real web-based businesses that needs rapid prototyping, I
would NEVER consider Java.

gtoomey

 

[Jochen Buennagel]

I would rather take on two PHP programmers at $30k apiece

30? Woa!

Am I glad I'm in Europe where companies tend to pay programmers what
they're worth...

Jochen

 

[Chung Leong]

PHP is too easy to set up, that's the problem. Any bozo can install it on
their PC, ticker with it a little bit, then claim 2 years of PHP experience
on his resume.

Companies that uses PHP also tend to be smaller and on the stingy side--at
least here in the States.

 

[Jürgen Exner]

I just wonder job selections, job openings and salary level of PHP
programer or Perl programmer comparing to Java programmers.

Is Java programmer's salary has a minimal of 60K in US? Are there
many PHP jobs?

Sorry for asking a stupid question, but shouldn't a good programmer be able
to learn a new language within a month or so? Ok, the basics he can learn
within a week and real proficiency takes somewhat longer, maybe 3-6 months.
But nevertheless.

I mean, if you want someone to finish a specific project short term, then
ok, you hire someone who knows the language that are using already.
But if you want an employee with a long-term perspective, is his current
spectrum of programming languages really that important? It gives an
indication about how capable he may be, but it is one factor among many(!)
others and not the dominant factor at that.

jue

 

[Jochen Buennagel]

PHP is too easy to set up, that's the problem. Any bozo can install it on
their PC, ticker with it a little bit, then claim 2 years of PHP experience
on his resume.

But he won't make it past the first month if there is anyone watching
what he does. The next time they hire, they might be more wary (sp?). If
not, they deserve what they're getting and I wouldn't want to work for
them anyway, because they won't appreciate my work.

Companies that uses PHP also tend to be smaller and on the stingy side--at
least here in the States.

As a freelancer, I usually tell them to hire the highschool kid for
$10/h. When I call back 2-4 weeks later, most of the time I'll get the
job for my normal rate, based on their experience.

Jochen

 

[CountScubula]

judge this by how fast you can learn a new spoken laguage as in French,
German, etc... sure we can learn the words, and I can say "Pick up the
pencil" but it doesnt become fluent for a while.

I would not consider learning any language to be done in a month, or 3-6.

Any programmer that comes at me with that attitude, Well, I will call him,
dont call me.

 

[Walter Roberson]

:Sorry for asking a stupid question, but shouldn't a good programmer be able
:to learn a new language within a month or so? Ok, the basics he can learn
:within a week and real proficiency takes somewhat longer, maybe 3-6 months.
:But nevertheless.

"real proficiency" can take a lot longer than 3-6 months.

I've been programming in perl for 5+ years, but I don't consider myself
to be proficient yet. Perl is a moving target, and it is a big
target; in 3-6 months you probably aren't going to have a chance to
exercise a wide enough variety of constructs to really be "proficient".

Similarily, there's a very big difference between learning the
mechanics of C++ and learning it to the point of proficiency. I have
a copy of the official C++ ANSI standard, and it is at least 3 inches
(8 cm) thick of dense reference material. Learning how and -when- to
use each of those facilities takes more than 3-6 months.

I do a lot of work these days with Cisco PIX firewalls. PIX has
configuration commands, but is not "programmable". Learning the basics
of PIX only takes a couple of hours, but even after 2 1/2 years of
actively working on PIX and reading (and answering) lots of
comp.dcom.sys.cisco postings about PIX, I can still only answer
somewhere around 40% of the questions. There is a combinatorial
interaction between the features, and there are new features being
introduced every couple of months.

If you just want someone who can get the computer to dance a jig,
then perhaps someone "imported" from another language will do -- but
to get it to dance *gracefully*, you want experience in that language.

 

[Chris Mattern]

judge this by how fast you can learn a new spoken laguage as in French,
German, etc... sure we can learn the words, and I can say "Pick up the
pencil" but it doesnt become fluent for a while.

Human languages are far larger and immensely more complex than
computer languages--as is shown by the fact that computers
can understand computer languages but not human languages.

I would not consider learning any language to be done in a month, or 3-6.

Any programmer that comes at me with that attitude, Well, I will call him,
dont call me.

Your loss then. In my opinion, an average new language can be
learned well in a month of intense study. If the language
involves a radically different way of expressing a program's
logic (Prolog, for example), it can be learned in 3-6 months.

Chris Mattern

 

[Tassilo v. Parseval]

Also sprach Chris Mattern:

Human languages are far larger and immensely more complex than
computer languages--as is shown by the fact that computers
can understand computer languages but not human languages.

However and unlike with programming languages, the parsers and
interpreters of human languages (namely humans) usually do a good job of
understanding broken language (both syntactically and semantically
broken). This is not true for programming languages.

Your loss then. In my opinion, an average new language can be
learned well in a month of intense study. If the language
involves a radically different way of expressing a program's
logic (Prolog, for example), it can be learned in 3-6 months.

The issue was proficiency. That's a far taller order than people often
think [1]. There are languages whose core of features is very thin but which
require quite a bit of experience. Think of C. I've yet to meet the
programmer who managed to become proficient in this language within six
months.

[1]: The list of requirements is long and goes far beyond knowing the
language concepts.

Tassilo

 

[David H. Adler]

Also sprach Chris Mattern:

However and unlike with programming languages, the parsers and
interpreters of human languages (namely humans) usually do a good job of
understanding broken language (both syntactically and semantically
broken). This is not true for programming languages.

Conversely, this means that you can get away with not knowing a human
language extremely well and still be able to make yourself understood.
With computer languages, you need to be able to speak rather precisely
or your interlocutor may react strangely.

dha

 

[Matt Garrish]

My point is that the fact that computer can't understand human
languages doesn't prove human languages are more complex.

You can't even compare the two. Computers don't understand anything; they
react in a defined way to defined commands. Human language goes far beyond
anything a computer language is capable of because, to cite one example,
human language isn't just verbal. Just look at the abuse of smiley faces in
postings to impart the meaning you don't get from the letters on your
screen. Computer languages are finite (whether you learn everything there is
to know about them or not), whereas human are infinite. Anyone who thinks a
computer language is more complex than a human language needs a few
linguistics courses.

Matt

 

[Pierre Asselin]

I would not consider learning any language to be done in a month, or 3-6.

It depends on the language. At one end of the spectrum, I was productive
in tcl after staring at the Tcl(n) man page intently for 20 minutes.
After that it took maybe two months for my style to stabilize. At the
other end of the spectrum you have kitchen-sink languages like C++.

Any programmer that comes at me with that attitude, Well, I will call him,
dont call me.

Your loss. It's the *programming* that takes decades to learn.
By comparison the programming languages are completely superficial.
Even C++.

 

[Tassilo v. Parseval]

Also sprach David H. Adler:

Conversely, this means that you can get away with not knowing a human
language extremely well and still be able to make yourself understood.
With computer languages, you need to be able to speak rather precisely
or your interlocutor may react strangely.

Glad I was understood here.

When putting aside the syntactical correctness of a program (this is
hardly an issue and indeed takes less than a few hours to learn for
almost any programming language), the strict need for semantic
preciseness is much harder to fullfill. The computer is not a corrective
instance. Consider how hard our human languages would become if we were
forced to always speak semantically correct or otherwise we wouldn't be
understood. This would eventually make earth a rather quiet place, I
bet.

And therefore, when speaking about programming language and programming
in general, it should become obvious how far more complicated things are
in this field. It takes more than a few months to learn how to turn an
abstract idea in one's mind into a computer program. Even worse, this
can't be learnt once and applied everywhere because the circumstances
have to be taken into account: like what machine this stuff is supposed
to run on or what language will I use since different languages contain
different concepts and I am only allowed to use those that are part of
the language. I may have learnt programming in C but how much is this
going to help me when I have to use LISP this time and subsequently
must do it without my beloved pointers?

Tassilo

 

[Ben Morrow]

Computers don't understand anything; they react in a defined way to
defined commands.

s/commands/stimuli/;
And humans don't? Obviously, predicting the reaction of a given person
to a given stimulus is much much harder than predicting that of a
given computer, but this is only because we understand the innards of
computers rather better than we understand the innards of our own
brains. They are both based on exactly the same physical laws.

And no, I don't have a philosophical problem reconciling this with
free will, and no, I don't need to invoke quantum uncertainty to do
so.

Computer languages are finite (whether you learn everything there is
to know about them or not), whereas human are infinite.

The number of syntactically correct Perl programs is just as infinite
as the number of comprehensible English sentences, including such
nuances as facial expression where they make a difference to the
meaning conveyed.

Anyone who thinks a computer language is more complex than a human
language needs a few linguistics courses.

With this I would not disagree. The point is, though, that a computer
language generally has to be learned much better before you can make
yourself understood, because computers have much less imagination than
people.

Ben

 

[Matt Garrish]

s/commands/stimuli/;
And humans don't? Obviously, predicting the reaction of a given person
to a given stimulus is much much harder than predicting that of a
given computer, but this is only because we understand the innards of
computers rather better than we understand the innards of our own
brains. They are both based on exactly the same physical laws.

No, it's because a computer will always react in the same way. You don't
compile your code and hope that the computer will understand it the way you
wanted (well, good programmers don't, I suppose). The difference is that you
*can* predict a computer's reaction (it wouldn't be the most useful of tools
if you had to convince it to do what you wanted).

The number of syntactically correct Perl programs is just as infinite
as the number of comprehensible English sentences, including such
nuances as facial expression where they make a difference to the
meaning conveyed.

It's not finite or infinite in terms of the number you can put together, but
in the way in which you can understand them. I can't remember the comic
anymore (and it's funny that I can actually use this now, as there was a
post earlier in the day that reminded me of it), but there was a fellow
whose routine was to say "dude" in a variety of different ways (to show how
meaning is derived from context). "Dude", depending on how he said it, could
signify anything from a puzzled inquiry of whether someone was present to an
affirmation of assent (if memory serves, I think it was around the time of
"Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures"). Anyway, to make a long story short,
directing a computer to print "dude" will cause it to print "dude". You can
change where you send the output to, but the it will always be just a plain
old dude...

Matt

 

[David K. Wall]

Chris Mattern ([email protected]) wrote on MMMDCCXCII September MCMXCIII in
<URL:==
== Human languages are far larger and immensely more complex than
== computer languages--as is shown by the fact that computers
== can understand computer languages but not human languages.

OTOH, the fast majority of humans understand nothing of computer
languages, and can't even deal with the most simple subset of them
(while computers nowadays can deal with simplified human languages).
Furthermore, most humans only speak one human language well, and only a
few make it past knowing two languages well.

My point is that the fact that computer can't understand human
languages doesn't prove human languages are more complex.

True enough, but there are other ways to demonstrate the complexities of
human languages. I doubt that any existing computer language could
express the range of thought found in, for example, even one of
Shakespeare's plays. Translating most computer programs into a precise
description in English (or perhaps Dutch) would be relatively easy -- but
tedious -- for someone who knows both the computer and human languages.

Contrariwise, a language like Mathematica is designed to handle concepts
that are difficult to express without mathematical symbology. Doing math
while confining yourself to symbols ill-suited for it would and did slow
things down considerably. Some examples are the difficulty of doing long
division while using Roman numerals, or algebra with Italian, French, or --
but of course -- Arabic.

The comparison is kind of silly, anyway. I wouldn't want to write a sonnet
in Perl (Perl poetry notwithstanding*), nor would I want to write a
computer program in English. Didn't Cobol try to do something like that
already?

Perl and English are both "human" languages because they're invented and
used by humans to express things. Perl is good for giving computers
instructions to do text processing (among other things), and English is
good for talking to other English-speaking humans. Use the appropriate
tool.

This thread seems to have wandered far afield from Perl or PHP....


(* I'm not in the habit of writing sonnets anyway.)

 

[G Klinedinst]

Your loss then. In my opinion, an average new language can be
learned well in a month of intense study. If the language
involves a radically different way of expressing a program's
logic (Prolog, for example), it can be learned in 3-6 months.

I agree with you on this one 100% Chris. In college we were expected
to learn how to program in new languages at a fairly high level in
about 4 months in a course meeting for 3 hours/wk + homework time,
which is nowhere near a 40hr/week work week.

Obviously if you have a project that needs done yesterday then get
someone in who knows the language well at the onset, pay them high
contract wages( $60-80/hour) and get the project done, then bring on
someone else full-time.

If, on the other hand you are looking for a long term addition to you
company there are WAY more important factors than if they know a
specific language(work ethic, honesty, compatibility with your office
culture, intelligence, etc). I would go so far as to say that if you
hire someone who cannot learn a new language quickly you should be
looking elsewhere. Programming is nothing more than logical problem
solving, and languages are the tools we use to solve those problems.
Anyone worth their paycheck should be able to pick up a new one and be
programming in less than a month.

Personaly, I don't see it as high as $60k. Don't get me wrong,
there may be a Java programmer making that or more. People get
paid what thier worth, unfortunalty, to any of my companies,
Java is worthless. I would rather take on two PHP programmers
at $30k apiece

This is crazy. I'm not sure why you would go to college and learn to
do something as difficult as programming to make the same money as a
bus driver. You can get $50K or more starting salary for Perl or PHP
if you move to the right metro area. Usually about 10K more per year
with Java. Just watch out for the cost of living and competition for
jobs in some areas.

-Greg K.

 

[John W. Kennedy]

My point is that the fact that computer can't understand human
languages doesn't prove human languages are more complex.

Nevertheless, human languages are _far_ more complicated. A _very_
simplified YACC grammar for English has about 10,000 rules. (Exception:
the artificial language Loglan (http://www.loglan.org) has only about
150; interestingly, Loglan is _very_ difficult to learn.)

--
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"