All Perl code I have ever seen, has been "write-only". Just completely unreadable and it was easier to just look at the output instead of the code when converting it to Python to get actual maintainability.
You are getting downvoted, but for me, it is the same experience. It's a dead language, and we are switching to Python, that is far better to maintain for me and for all our new hires. I mean, Perl doesn't even has a debugger on Windows.
Not true by any stretch. I've used komodo[1] for more than 2 decades as a debugger in Linux, Mac, and Windows. More recently VSCode on all 3, for debugging.
Definitely not a dead language. A mature and stable language, which won't surprise you.