Perl is very influenced by the Unix command line. I can remember years ago (when other mini computer operating systems around and everyone was mad on pascal) m

Perl is very influenced by the Unix command line. I can remember years ago (when other mini computer operating systems around and everyone was mad on pascal) my college lecturers disdain for the design C and Unix. If the same thing happens again terseness, power and flexibility win against ridged ideas of how programs/command-lines should be written. Perl exploded with the web, however before the web it was widely used. It might not be the web programming language of choice but it it's still great at manipulating information, processing large files and general administration.