[oblio]

Languages are not just platonic, ideal things, living in an abstract world. They are also people, core developers and BDFLs, guidelines, communities, cultures.

The Perl culture is overall about being practical but also being clever and leaning towards code golf.

The Python culture is overall about being explicit and readable.

As usual, YMMV, but that's the impression an awfully lot of people get, so there must be some truth to that.

[bjornjaja]

The problem with any language is most people don’t spend time to actually learn it to proficiency. They don’t read the books, just google a quick solution.

Perl is great because it has nuances many languages don’t, for instance sigils which allow the language to evolve safely (adding language constructs won’t clash with vars.) and “magic variables” designed to allow shortcuts like we use in spoken language. But, just like people shouldn’t use much spoken vernacular in writing, a lot of those features are designed for quick “conversations” and one-off scripts. And it should be peer reviewed before publication.

Python is great for many things too, but it’s no C++, and it’s also no Perl.