The parrot VM is in some ways like the JVM. One of the central design goals is to make it possible for the various languages running on it to call each other properly, and seamlessly. Which means that your perl proram will be able to call routines written in Ruby, Python, Java (yes, really), .NET code, APL, or even INTERCAL. One of the joys of a standardized calling convention. (And mandated thunking layers to wedge in languages that wouldn't otherwise play ball)

Oh, and Intel hired python people instead of Ruby ones? Pity.