[giusc]

Sounds to me like the classic apples and oranges comparison.

In my opinion Javascript's evolution has become a requirement more than just a story of success. It was the de facto standard language for browsers but with big lacks of performances. Browsers vendors worked to improve it and everything was only a natural consequence of the evolution of the World Wide Web.

Perl's history is completely different. Perl has always worked behind the scenes, and still does it greatly. It has a stable, rock solid, very performant and widely spread runtime.

Let's just call things with their names and use them for the purpose they are born and everything will look less confusing.

More than else, always remember: You can write FORTRAN in any Language.