It seems that my WDVL article has made its way here to the Monastery. As the author of said "Warts and All" piece, I wanted to make a few points. By and large, the discussion here is fair and reasonable. I don't want to respond point-by-point to every criticism and agreement -- in some cases, I've had a difficult time with topics I haven't fully mastered, in other cases criticisms are a matter of subjectivity.

There is no motivation to bash Perl behind this article. If you look at yourself in the mirror and say "boy I'm getting a little fat around the middle", that doesn't mean you're a horrible person. But it's still important to look, and to see.

I'm not inexperienced with Perl, as some critics jump to argue. That I might disagree with, or prefer, alternate language constructs in certain instances is not a sign of naivete. The audience for this article, and the series in which it appears, are newcomers to the language, and my perspective is geared towards that of a newcomer, and what may be troublesome. This can and does sometimes involve the way Perl uses context sensitivity and reference syntax.

The mention of Python at the end of the article does not disclose a secret pro-Python/anti-Perl agenda or bias. It is merely a suggestion for those whose curiosities are piqued. I favor no single programming language, all are tools. The vast majority of my live, production code is written in Perl.

Perl Monks, being an advanced breed, are certainly going to view some of these observations from a very different perspective. By the same token, Ward's Auto World is going to evaluate a particular car differently than Consumer Reports, given their audiences.

I appreciate everyone's responses here, I take the comments and critiques to heart.

cheers

Aaron