morelenmir:

Interesting, I didn't jump ship from C++ to perl. Instead, I added perl to my toolbox. I still enjoy programming in C++. I can still code in other languages too (most of which aren't as fun as C++ and perl).

What made me add perl to my toolbox? A few things: money, hashes, and CPAN. I had a contract where I had to support a perl application. Until then, I considered perl an uninteresting ugly language. After working with it, I've learned that in fact it's a very interesting ugly language. Hashes were the first feature that made me realize how easy it is to do one-off jobs without worrying so much about the details of a data structure. But CPAN clinched the deal. Database whackery with DBI is *much* simpler than using OCI or ODBC in C++. Generating spreadsheets is possible in perl on a Unix box--even better, it's easy. I'm sure it's possible in C++, but it sure isn't easy. (Well, at least last time I tried. I haven't looked for any libraries for the last 10 years, though, as I already have Spreadsheet::WriteExcel.)

Update: Fixed broken <i> tag.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.