[selfhoster11]

I don't think I ever ran TinyCore without immediately connecting it to the Internet to grab a bunch of packages. Puppy Linux included Perl in its base install at one time (I don't know if it still does), and Damn Small Linux was supposed to have a cut-down version of Perl included as well.

[jolmg]

Python definitely not, though.

[selfhoster11]

Yeah, but if you are happy to program in Perl, that's basically every major Linux distro covered. Anything using DEB or RPM packaging, any machine with Git installed (which includes Windows), plus the ones I already mentioned, already have access to Perl. This is a formidable installed base with no effort needed to install a runtime.

[jolmg]

I agree, but michaelcampbell's point seemed to be: why learn a language for its ubiquity, when more commonly used languages seem to be just as ubiquitous? So, I focused on how they're not that ubiquitous.

[selfhoster11]

I see what you mean. I guess what I was trying to say is that my position is close to that of michaelcampbell's, and that I wanted to emphasize how little portability is sacrificed by adopting this position on most environments one will ever work in.