The article concludes "For the uninitiated, PHP is more newbie-friendly, but Perl has a richer set of resources to draw on over the long term." And I think, if a project is to be taken seriously, it has to consider the long term. What value has a quick start if I get stuck only a few km on the way?

One of the big advantages of Perl is the availability of code for almost every purpose under heaven (phrase inspired by one of the last poems :)) PHP's PEAR still has a long way to go until it'll be comparable to CPAN.

Another thing I prefer Perl over PHP for is that it's suited for more than just WWW applications. I can write the offline CLI tools for our WCMS in the same language the mod_perl based WCMS itself is written in. I can even use the same language to program scripts I administer our Linux systems with. Perl is to me what the Swiss army knife is to... er... the Swiss army, obviously. And, to drive this comparison home: Using a Sharp Zaurus, I, too, never leave home without it. :-)

Granted, there are ways to make a Perl script completely non-understandable. But this problem exists in almost every programming language, certainly also in PHP. If the developer invests the necessary time, she can make her Perl script very readable, even by the novice.

The biggest advantage of PHP is indeed its steep learning curve. But in the long term, Perl's advantages are far more important to me.

Best regards,
Jochen "geewiz" Lillich