It wasn't even stagnant for a full 10 years, let alone 20. Perl 5.8 was released in 2002 Perl 5.10 was released in 2007 It has had a release every year since

It wasn't even stagnant for a full 10 years, let alone 20. Perl 5.8 was released in 2002 Perl 5.10 was released in 2007 It has had a release every year since 5.12 in 2010. The latest was 5.32 on 2020-Jun-20. (Less than a year ago.) The book Modern Perl was first released in 2010. It's 4th edition was released in 2015. --- Even if you ignored 5.10, there is only 8 years from 5.8 to 5.12 when the yearly releases started happening. I really don't understand how you managed to get 20 years from any of those dates.