disclaimer: I really didn't intend to transform this into a discussion that's 70% about Python (I could have said Ruby or Javascript instead, the question was a

disclaimer: I really didn't intend to transform this into a discussion that's 70% about Python (I could have said Ruby or Javascript instead, the question was about Perl and the comparison was just an example). Right now I would downvote my own parent comment if I could, just to get higher the other comments that are actually relevant to Perl programmers.