For "Tired of Perl Is Dead FUD", I generated a simple chart of Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby job listings. It generated a lot more interest than I expected.
One of the common comments went something like, "Yeah, but there's no Perl jobs in my backyard".
Which aggravated a chronic itch I've had since first releasing DBD::Chart/ DBIx::Chart several years ago: how to support some kind of GIS visualizations. I've occasionally had users ask about GIS support, but it seemed like such a huge challenge that I've always begged off.
All the online mapping services are about "geo-location"; I'm interested in "geo-intelligence".
So when people asked "yeah, but where are those jobs ?", I decided to scratch that itch.
I found GD::Map, but its interface and rendering weren't quite what I wanted. So I've created GD::Map::Mercator. (Alas, I still haven't figured out how to integrate it into DBIx::Chart, but the experience helped me better understand the issues)
With that, and a Javascript widget I've been working on for another project, and a bit more detailed screenscraping, I've whipped up a Dynamic Language Jobs Map that provides some relative indicators of where those jobs are, along with a drill-down breakout of the Javascript, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby job counts. (Sorry, USA only; free/open, current detail GIS data for other locations is hard to find)
Note that I've added Javascript to the list, because its become increasingly important to me personally, and I suspect it either already is, or soon will be, important to other dynamic language users.
The cosmetics are still a bit rough in spots (despite minor intervention with Microsoft Paint), but hopefully its a bit more insightful. I'd hoped to get a deeper drill down using area code GIS data, but I've been unable to locate a free/open source for the data (if anyone knows of a source of such data, I'd be grateful if you passed along the info).
I'll try to update the data every couple of weeks; I've imposed on DICE's hospitatilty a bit more than I should; hopefully they'll continue to be gracious about my occasional scraping.
This is some interesting information, however, I wouldn't jump to conclusions.
From what I have seen, It's hard to find Perl programmers, often times you see the same companies running ads for long periods of time, I think PHP positions are filled up with greater ease as the pool of candidates seems to be larger.
As an aside, at last month's LA.pm meetings we had 5 different companies pitching positions.
