I learned Perl just as my shell scripts grew into more than ten-liners, and I switched happily. I never learned awk or sed, Perl is just far too convenient. An

I learned Perl just as my shell scripts grew into more than ten-liners, and I switched happily. I never learned awk or sed, Perl is just far too convenient. And I think it is possible to write very readable, maintainable Perl, but one has to really want to and make it a habit. Perl has a couple of footguns, and one needs to be aware of those. The main reason Perl dropped out of favor, IMHO, was the combination of the Perl 6 debacle and Ruby on Rails taking its place for web development. But in its original niche, Perl remains a great choice.