I love his system of regularly evaluating other languages to see what advantages they might offer him.
It just goes to show: Don't worry about using the "best language", just use the best language for you.
It just goes to show: Don't worry about using the "best language", just use the best language for you.
Fair enough, he wants to continue to use Perl because it's familiar and there aren't really massive advantages to using the other languages, that's a fair point, but state that as opposed to having a tone that suggests Perl is a better language than the others, or at least back that up with something quantifiable.
On the other hand, Perl (when comparing php, python, ruby) would be last on my list because it requires the most effort to learn and get familiar with the syntax and I don't think the extra work required to learn Perl is worth the effort, because again, I think you'll actually be alright with the modern versions of all the languages.
I'm not sure I can see explicitly choosing to learn "modern" Perl to start a new project in, though. Personally I prefer Python over Ruby, unlike the author here, but I prefer both of them to Perl and its extremely... eclectic syntax. I once failed a job interview because I joked that Perl was a read-only language, but it really frequently is.
Here's why I think learning Perl is worth it: a lot of programmers write stuff in it. It won't make you know other languages any less.