[msbarnett]

On the one hand, I tend to think that learning a new language or tool kit is always a valuable experience. On the other hand I switched from Perl to Ruby as my go-to scripting language about 6 years ago and haven't felt like there were any niches which Perl serviced that Ruby failed to, for my uses.

Still, I'd say try it out for a few small things; you might find that Perl better fits the way you think, and if not, at least you can say you know a bit of Perl if anyone ever asks.

[drac]

By and large, I've had the opposite problem making a lasting switch from Perl to Ruby.

I know Perl better than most other languages in my toolbox, and it's my default prototyping and one-off utility language. I don't find a lot of niches (for my typical uses, of course) that are served better by Ruby, so it's been really difficult to switch away from Perl.