Hi,

Fantastic article!!. Wouldn't know about the Raku Language cause I never used it. For my purpose, Perl 5 seems more than capable, and yes, when it comes to decoding UTF 16 output, nothing comes even close to it.

I just hope that Perl regains it's position, especially in the DevOps field. It's just too good a language to be relegated to sidelines or be the favourite punching bag.

Nothing against Python, but the Python lovers I've come across seem not to have a "point to make" when I calmly sit down and try to do a point by point analysis of their favourite pet peeves against Perl.

When they tell me about the "weird regex syntax", I show them how the qr and # or ## can make it not only clearer, but powerful.

When they tell me about "Function Signatures", I gently point it out that the feature was experimental and can be used, but also show them how hashrefs can be used in sub parameters/arguments.....Please note, I am not a language purist, nor a trained software developer, but Perl "Just Works" for me.

When they tell me the "line noise", I show them some scripts which are clearly readable, all thanks to the amazing authors who have shown the clear way of writing scripts.

When they say "List Comprehensions/Dictionary Comprehensions", I calmly point them to sort, map and grep.

Then I ask them if there's something like a "state" variable in Python, or how my script/comments are not bounded by tabs/spaces, or the ternary operator, or qr function, or the simplicity with which I can write a command output to a file (no sub process shenanigans), or my favourite, the UTF 16 handling, or how my and our help me with controlling the scope, or the python equivalent of  use strict and  use warnings or the amazingly powerful references ( I just use 10% of what references have to offer, but I'm a happy man) they do not seem to have a satisfying answer except "It's not really needed/It is too cryptic" or some similar excuse.

As a final point, I show them Strawberry Perl, how it comes pre bundled with so many modules, how easy it is to simply move from one version to the other by just pointing it to a specific perl version, and of course, how the Portable version makes "Admin Access" a non issue, they generally "get my point" and let me be.