APL came before Perl, and APL is regarded by many to be one of the best languages overall. I'd recommend reading Iverson's "Notation as a Tool of Thought" for

APL came before Perl, and APL is regarded by many to be one of the best languages overall. I'd recommend reading Iverson's "Notation as a Tool of Thought" for a new perspective. Plenty of people, from Richard Stallman to Alan Perlis, have found great value in APL. Even if just looking at terseness, Chuck Moore, the creator of FORTH, is considered to be one of the best, if not the best, programmers of all time. He credits it all to terseness.