[swash]

We're using Perl for a new startup. Our team has a background in computational biology where Perl is still big. Some of us have more than 10 years of Perl experience and if you know the language well it's just insanely productive.

Readability was never an issue. We follow a few common guidelines and with Perl::Tidy we get consistently formatted code.

So in principle Perl is perfect for us, the only drawback is that there is less and less library support for Perl. Most services like for example Stripe have libraries for Python, Ruby but don't bother with Perl (and I don't blame them). Third party libraries from CPAN are usually not that robust and well maintained.

But in general the Perl backend is the most robust part in our codebase and I would not trade it for any other language.

[SimHacker]

Good luck finding any decent Perl programmers to hire. And if you do find them, good luck paying their exorbitant hazard pay and keeping them happy enough to stick around. And then after they leave, good luck finding more Perl programmers to willing to clean up the unmaintainable mess they left behind.

[arc_of_descent]

Whats with the luck factor? You can hire newbies and train them to learn Perl. The Learning Perl books are fantastic.

If you have an experienced team and new programmers willing and eager to learn Perl, lady Luck can go for a fuck.

[Diederich]

I do a fair amount of Perl hiring, and here in the south bay (silicon valley), it's been pretty easy to hire good Perl talent.

[antitrust]

You should come to one of our local PerlMongers meetings (http://pm.org/).

I think it would change your mind about a number of things!