It's always going to be a matter of personal judgement, and if I think something is marginally off-topic

There is no such thing as marginally off-topic. Things are either on topic, or not (and keep in mind appropriate sections). That particular node may be perceived as OT on the surface, but once you see that it's in the "meditations" section, you realize that it is exactly on topic. It is a meditation and it is applicable to perl. Now if this was posted in SOPW asking what's the best C++ development environment it would clearly be OT.