in reply to Perl to C to C+ to C++ to Visual C++
For a very nice comparison of Perl vs. other OO languages, notably C++, see Appendix B of Object Oriented Perl by Damian Conway.
If you really want to understand the issues in comparing one language to another, you should read Essentials of Programming Languages.
Christian Lemburg Brainbench MVP for Perl http://www.brainbench.com