One major advantage a subscription has is long term continuity between myself and your staff. Incremental training can occur as part of the normal work week without slowing down production by one iota. New Perl can be addressed based on earlier work and longer term projects can be also be scheduled. After the

All serious athletes have coaches who help them out by observing and giving them guidance and feedback. So why don't developers have such people? Well then, consider Perl On Call as your Perl coach. I can observe your staff and their systems and give them the guidance they need to improve their Perl skills.

You hire staff to solve your particular software problems. They generally don't have the time to improve their Perl skills. Perl On Call can provide that incremental training without taking away any spare time from development. In fact it should make your staff more productive by helping them avoid blind alleys, wasted exploring of CPAN or docs, etc. I can help make your staff spend more time on your needs because they will become better designers and Perl programmers.

I don't like to give out fish. I not only will teach you how to fish but also how to make the rod, sail the boat and genetically engineer the fish to always bite on your lure. And all this happens because my support responses explore the problem space and related areas in order to help illuminate larger problems and cleaner solutions. Just showing how to do something with a cool regex feature is not enough. I will discuss the feature and related ones and how they can be used in other circumstances. The best part about tiny lessons is that they are triggered by your staff's actual Perl questions and problems so they are always on target to help them out. General purpose classes or books can't be as focused on your real world issues as I can.

Suppose you hit a tough Perl problem and your cow-orkers are not able to help out. Perl on Call can be the extra help that is around just to help out in these situations. I can help you analyze the situation and work with you on solving it.

In many companies, especially the larger ones, I have seen a lack of a Perl community. There can be many Perl hackers all around or in little isolated clusters but rarely did I see any real company support for Perl in general. Many times top management doesn't even realize how much Perl is used but they count every line of Java. Perl On Call can become the focal point for your Perl community and help it grow. Just having a mailing list dedicated to Perl in your shop will foster a stronger community. There are many other ways Perl On Call can help your community.

I have engineered a very broad range of software systems. This depth of experience means I will most likely have seen similar projects to yours and I can help with all aspects of their engineering. Below is a short list of the areas in which I have done significant work.

Experience matters and is a valuable commodity. By subscribing to Perl On Call you get direct access to my experience in both Perl and software engineering. I have worked on so many different systems and applications that it will be hard for me to be surprised at any projects at your shop. Since I can pick up your designs quickly, I can provide design and coding ideas as needed.

My public resume is very long and yet is still abridged. I get many compliments on it and I am proud that it accurately describes the projects I have done and my skill set. Check it out in text or in HTML formats.

Unlike the town in "The Prairie Home Companion", not all children and coders are above average. There is probably some version of a bell curve with a normal distribution of skills. I would rate myself above average in coding and Perl but where on the curve I can't say but IMNSHO it is solidly on that side. But don't worry, I make up for that with no talents at all in graphics and music!

I will tell you if the emperor has no clothes. Being an outside service, my goal is to be able to tell you my honest opinions and ideas about your Perl code and issues. Sometimes you need an honest outside observer who can tell you what they think.

One of my true joys is when I explain a Perl feature that is new to a Perl hacker and they get it. I know that they will integrate it into their toolkit and be more productive. It may be an incremental change but if you accumulate enough of them a complete transformation will occur and you will have a highly skilled Perl developer on your staff. So by getting a subscription, you can foster the continuous growth in skills of your Perl staff.

I am blessed to have many friends and colleagues in the world wide Perl community. When I am stumped and can't help you directly (which will happen - rarely :-), I will find the right Perl expert to help me figure out a solution. Some of these luminaries are Damian Conway, Randal Schwartz, Peter Scott and Mark Jason Dominus.