The future of Perl? (Perl 6, employability)

Question

I\'ve found a few related questions, like Python vs. Perl (now deleted) and Is Perl Worth it? (now deleted), but I can\'t seem to find anything that directly a

Answer 1

Perl is, and always will be, a practical language for manipulating large amounts of data. I work in an industry where moving, converting, and parsing large amounts of text and image data is what we do, and I couldn't live without Perl.

Likewise, if you're a sysadmin (especially a Unix one), Perl is a necessary tool. There are tons of places where you need to be able to whip up a quick and dirty application that runs right along with the shell functions.

Languages have niches. Perl has a big stable niche, in many ways much more stable than fad-driven web languages. PHP, for example, is a nice little web language, but its saving grace is that it's quick and easy to develop in, not that it is a particularly great language. I'll tend to use PHP over Perl for web applications (though I use Python over PHP, if I have time), but 90% of the stuff I do in my day-to-day would be nearly impossible in PHP, and is flat trivial in Perl.

@Nate: I love Python. LOVE it. I actually worry that I love it too much, and I'm being irrational about it. PHP is a nice tool, but when your main selling point is "Quick and Easy" then you're running a risk. That was the big push behind original Visual Basic, and we all know how that worked out.