Perl never really achieved getting on stage and being handed the equivalent of a few Oscars for best actor. It was way too busy doing the budgets, filing the paperwork, running the payroll and making sure the subtitles are all spellchecked. Vital work for the production, yes, but nothing you can put on the cover of a magazine. Perl might not have been the face you see on ads, but it was and is a vital part of the team of programming languages that make the modern world work.

Well said. If we were thinking militarily (Note: I have never served), Perl could be the non-comms, keeping all of the important, day-to-day stuff running, while management (commissioned officers) is figuring out strategy.

My last job was with a small team (about ten) that supported the business unit that provided a CAD $50M revenue stream. Some of the Perl code that did this was >20 years old. It's old, but it still works incredibly well.