Perl, like other scripting and late-binding languages, is very flexible ("duct tape of the internet"). Amazon is reputedly a Perl shop and it gives them agility

Perl, like other scripting and late-binding languages, is very flexible ("duct tape of the internet"). Amazon is reputedly a Perl shop and it gives them agility to quickly experiment with new retailing ideas. But the knowledge they gained, and the site they built, wasn't due to Perl - it was due to them working on problems they found. Here's someone else who solves problems: http://blog.plover.com http://blog.plover.com (and who wrote Higher Order Perl). All learning is commendable, including learning from a language. But to think that knowledge comes only from existing languages is to constrain one's knowledge, and for oneself to be defined by one's tools. Languages aren't the source of intellectual nutrition; they are a conduit to it (or how could they be created in the first place?). The source is creating solutions to problems.