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I do find an irony that the 0.1 specification of Perl is worst than the 0.1 specification of Dart.

Why is it surprising that a language designed to occupy a niche between shell and C in 1987 had a spec faster and looser than a language designed from (let's say) 2009 through 2011, based on an existing, popular, and well-understood language with well-publicized flaws?

But, keep in mind that Perl 0.1 wasn't intended to replace a Javascript-like language. It was created as a replacement for Unix shell, and tools like sed, awk etc.

> Perl may not be the most popular language ever, but it definitely has its place.

Sure, but is it? Does it have any chance at all of being "the language of the future"? Or, is it a very old, mature language that has reached a plateau or is in slow decline?