PHP also has __halt_compiler() https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.halt-compiler.php

Back in the day I made a Perl script that would use an inline encryption algorithm to decode a payload and execute it in memory so it would never hit the disk. Data after the __DATA__ line.

While applying for new job once I made a self-unpacking CV in ruby using this trick; whole binary content was compressed with zlib, I also added some blank padding to get some 'nice' numbers, so I could stuff like DATA.seek(1337 * 32, IO::SEEK_CUR); needless to say either nobody appreciated the idea, then again, what I was expecting? :D

Are you sure that Perl took it from ruby and not the other way around?

(edit: a subsequent correction has obsoleted this comment)

yup. after that you can use the global var DATA to access the data injected after the __END__