I'm not being facetious, I really want to know the reason I would do that. I buy the "Perl is better than C" argument 100%, but how is it better than Php, Ruby,

I'm not being facetious, I really want to know the reason I would do that. I buy the "Perl is better than C" argument 100%, but how is it better than Php, Ruby, or Python Off the top of my head. * I'd disagree that other languages have better libraries and frameworks than Perl. Perl has some pretty darn awesome libraries and frameworks. * It has the best testing infrastructure in any language I have ever used. Period. * The Moose OO layer has some really rather nice things for composing large OO projects * Because something doesn't have to be better than another language to still be worth learning * Because there's a shit load of perl out there - and knowing how to deal with it well will probably make your life easier. * Because learning new languages always tweaks your perspective in useful ways in my experience * Because the Perl "infrastructure" (CPAN, metacpan, CPANTESTERS, CPANTS, etc. etc.) is still best of class. I so wish I could have reports like http://static.cpantesters.org/distro/D/Dancer2.html http://static.cpantesters.org/distro/D/Dancer2.html in the Python, PHP, JavaScript or Ruby world. * Because Perl takes backwards compatibility and keeping old code running very, very seriously. Shit just stays working.