For me, in my current position as a maintenance programmer, Perl is necessary in 2020 because it was used in 1995. But more to the point, I can still get my job done very quickly in Perl. I could get the same result in C, but that would negate all of the excellent code that's already available and proven -- that's Perl's secret weapon. Sure, Perl's performance isn't going to equal that of C, but the development time of Perl is tiny compared to C.

The Raku excursion is an interesting side-line -- I've tried bits of this language now and then, but I think I may be stuck using Perl 5 (or Perl 7); that's not a bad place to be right now.

Happy holidays, everyone, and please stay safe!