That's a very silly data point for several reasons.
First, the age of 30 is arbitrary, unless there's some reason that only the experiences of people under 30 matters. Perhaps everyone over 30 stops coding, or dies, or fails to create anything interesting -- but you haven't demonstrated that.
Second, the choice of Atlanta is arbitrary. Is Atlanta a sufficient statistical representative of all of the locations of programmers in the world?
Third, your choice of "people I know" is arbitrary. Can you demonstrate that you know a representative sample of available programmers in the Atlanta area? (What happens if you expand the definition of "programmers" to include "people who occasionally write a program"?)
Fourth, your experience doesn't compare. An anecdote is not a piece of data.
The rate of change on the CPAN is not the sole determinant of Perl's viability, but there is a single, well-understood place to share reusable code with other Perl programmers. It's measurable data, and it's normative for certain types of Perl usage.
What about that noise? This is pretty typical Perl thinking: pretend everything is ok, nothing to see here. Lots of CPAN commits, we have one metric to cling to. Everything is ok.
TIOBE's flaws are well-documented throughout the Internet (look out Ruby -- Delphi, RPG, and Logo are hot on your heels!). In particular, no third party has ever been able to duplicate their results, whereas anyone with access to any of the hundreds of CPAN mirrors can verify those numbers.
Generally I take everything I read with a large pinch of salt unless all the facts are presented and can be proven so don't believe either of these are fact especially the TIOBE one!
If I said nobody whatsoever under 30 codes Perl, you would count in my poll. I said nobody I know. I realize there are some of you, but you must know that there aren't many of you, right?
Most people I know that code Perl are in the 25-30 range, and I consider myself pretty widely connected in the community. Why do you care about age, anyway... it's a programming language, not a boy band.
Ok, here's your premise: Perl is dying.
And here's your argument: I don't know anyone below thirty in Atlanta that uses it.
Don't you actually see where your logic slipped? Sure, CPAN having doubled their upload rates last year doesn't mean anything, but the few young acquaintances of your personal social circle really add up to your statistically proved statement.
Do I know young Perl devs, personally? No, but that is also true for every other language (I don't know any other programmer personally, odd no?). But what would that prove anyway? It's too small of a sample size to reach any conclusion.
And, as jrockway said, there are lots of young Perl coders out there, they just don't happen to be my neighbors.
First, the age of 30 is arbitrary, unless there's some reason that only the experiences of people under 30 matters. Perhaps everyone over 30 stops coding, or dies, or fails to create anything interesting -- but you haven't demonstrated that.
Second, the choice of Atlanta is arbitrary. Is Atlanta a sufficient statistical representative of all of the locations of programmers in the world?
Third, your choice of "people I know" is arbitrary. Can you demonstrate that you know a representative sample of available programmers in the Atlanta area? (What happens if you expand the definition of "programmers" to include "people who occasionally write a program"?)
Fourth, your experience doesn't compare. An anecdote is not a piece of data.
The rate of change on the CPAN is not the sole determinant of Perl's viability, but there is a single, well-understood place to share reusable code with other Perl programmers. It's measurable data, and it's normative for certain types of Perl usage.
What you provided isn't data. It's just noise.