I personally also use Python regularly and am very comfortable with it, but we often choose Perl because of the developer experience in it. Perl has a reputati

I personally also use Python regularly and am very comfortable with it, but we often choose Perl because of the developer experience in it. Perl has a reputation for being difficult to learn, and it does have a bit of a high learning curve compared to Python. However, once you learn Perl, you'll find it's a rather wonderful, expressive. and powerful language. Is it "better" than Python or Ruby? No, just a different solution to many of the same problems. If we're being honest, most anything you can do in Ruby or Python can also be done in Perl. My experience is that most engineers and devs over the age of ~30 know Perl front and back (if they script), so it's a natural choice. Fewer of these people (in my experience) are as familiar with Python/Ruby. Perl continues to evolve and the Perl we wrote in 1998 isn't the same as the "Modern Perl" we write in 2014. There are great modern Perl web frameworks (Dancer, Mojolicious), real object-orientation via Moose, powerful exception handling via Try::Tiny, and a history of excellent database support.