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But could a different culture have actually changed Perl to be friendly and fun like Ruby? Without completely torpedoing compatibility with existing code and essentially creating a whole new language anyway?

Or did the language itself just get outdated and replaced? (there's nothing wrong with that! most things don't last forever!)

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I feel like I grokked Perl enough and I still write Perl code, but I also think that there are some technical reasons why it declined in popularity in the 2000s and 2010s. All those differences between $ % @, the idea of scalar or list context, overuse of globals, and references. These features can all make sense if you spend enough time in Perl, and can even be defended, but it creates a never-ending stream of code that looks right but is wrong, and it all seems to create a lot of complexity with very little benefit.

This requires those with power to relinquish authority and/or try new, unfamiliar practices and accept possible failure.

Any company/organization can theoretically change its culture, but it's quite difficult in practice.

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