Sounds like this guy is casting about for reasons to
knock perl.

"I declare a holy war!"

Seriously, though, let me take a tangent...
I've found myself losing my cool when pythoners scoff
at perl's tendency toward language sprawl and the
typical neophyte's "write-only" perl scripts. If I
knew real, practical arguments for or against python
compared with perl I'd feel a lot better.

What are the real issues here? Is this guy concerned
with portability -- because that's all I can see being
potentially bad about an undocumented interface...

I guess your associate could be equivocating, if he's
implying that perl isn't useful just because it doesn't
have something theoretical rather than practical...

Rob