One should not sneer or laugh at languages like Perl, COBOL, or similar, simply because there are others we like better, or are more popular. I used to be a HU

One should not sneer or laugh at languages like Perl, COBOL, or similar, simply because there are others we like better, or are more popular. I used to be a HUGE Perl fan, and discounted Python for years. I figured that I already knew Java, and since Python and Perl were effectively similar, it was a waste of my time to study both. I now regret that. As formative as that was for my growth as a programmer, I've loved coding in Python more than almost any other language -- and I delayed that discovery by a decade because I wrote it off as "effectively the same as" Perl. Sure, it was pragmatic to focus on one language that I was learning and using. But the reasons I did so were flawed, IMO.