Actually, I'd lump Perl in with Python, Ruby, and Javascript. They're all at about the same "power level" and have more or less the same built-in types and lang

Actually, I'd lump Perl in with Python, Ruby, and Javascript. They're all at about the same "power level" and have more or less the same built-in types and language features. They all have their own personality but if you only know 1 of the 4 you're still perfectly capable of writing any program that will be more or less equivalent to someone writing the same thing in one of the other 3.