[enknamel]

I'm not sure you are comparing apples to apples here. I would instead consider a graph like this one: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F05zrn%2C%20%2F...

Though I am not sure how Google categorizes search terms intro specific things like a programming language versus a python snake, etc. I wasn't offered a Python language selector so I changed it to Java and added Go for fun.

[ExpiredLink]

I'm sure you are comparing apples to oranges here. Perl mainly is an alternative to shell script. A language for administrators.

[enknamel]

That's probably it's number 1 use case. However, I've seen it used to build million+ user game servers, GUIs, etc. It's general purpose.