Perl 5 was my first language after a failed attempt at C as well. I no longer use it, in fact my favorite dynamic language is now Lua which I consider a polar o

Perl 5 was my first language after a failed attempt at C as well. I no longer use it, in fact my favorite dynamic language is now Lua which I consider a polar opposite of Perl in some ways. I now consider Perl, and in particular Perl 6, as a language to learn ideas and concepts from. This slide deck shows me TIMTOWDI is not dead :) Perl does not shy in taking concepts made popular by other languages (Lazy lists from Haskell, "Hyper operators" from F#, channels from Go...) or inventing its own. It makes it a complicated mess, but also a fantastic source to learn about different paradigms and ideas. I am eagerly waiting for a Perl 6 version of Programming Perl now, given how influential the third edition has been on me 15 years ago.