The answer, sad but true, is not long enough...

I had a look at some perl programs and smaller scripts here and then ever since I started to use linux at home in 1994, and despised the language as an optical nightmare, using bash and the normal unix toolchain and later python instead.

After biting in the (apparently) sour apple and choosing slashcode as base for a community site planned for one of our customers two years ago, I finaly had to use and lern perl...(mind you, it was my decision :-)

I never looked back, it's as simple as that; I do everything I possibly can justify in a java-warehouse in perl nowadays (everything thats system-administration, and a lot of data-im/ex-porting stuff).

With a bit of time at my hands, I'll go and write a small tool for my wife, to help her manage her pupils and their grades; it's almost finished in my head, just by regularly reading perlmonks I know the modules I need, and a few of their respective pitfalls; Besides the beauty of perl I now do see, perlmonks is a real assett to perl.

Thanks ;)