Perl and Perl programmers are a long way from dying off. I'm starting to help upgrade the Perl skills of an understudy now so she can expand on the work I've started and apply it elsewhere. Also, the Big Major Project we're starting over at the fab is going to be mostly Perl and Oracle. People here are sick to death of the problems associated with Java and Microsoft servers and databases. And, yes, this is enterprise-level stuff. The existing systems that are running the databases (eight 8-way's, last I counted) are well over 50% busy 24x7. We've got our (and a few more people's) work cut out for us because there area lot of failed Java and VB/ASP (and even C++!) apps that need to be converted and integrated.

Perl is very much a lingua fraca here. There are lots of little-job programmers here whose day job is chip design or system admin.

I agree heartily with the suggestion to find flexible programmers and teach them your Perl idioms. They'll end up teaching you as you all get better.