Are you kidding? I'm constantly coming back to Perl after drinking the Kool-Aid of some other language. And there is usually a stage of reorientation as I remember that Perl is a language, complete with punctuation and poetry. To paraphrase a line off of the Python site, the annual decision to keep using Perl is one of my little rituals :-)

Heck, I've even done almost the exact same project idea to rebuild my confidence. I called mine "DoltPad", and I think I had just gotten cut and paste working before I got an idea for a "real" project.

So here's what I do when I feel the need to rebuild my interest in Perl:

• Grab Programming Perl or some other book, flip to a random page, and start reading
• Look at some CPAN module I tried to reinvent while I was using another language. See if it has added anything new or exciting since I last looked at it
• Try my hand at some Perl poetry
• Try my hand at some Perl obfuscation
• Go to Perlmonks and select a Random Node until a lightbulb goes off in my head
• Think of some relatively small but challenging project that I could do in Perl, and get to it
• Talk to any Java evangelist for an extended period of time

These are just a few tricks, and they aren't in any particular order. Oh, and you haven't "lost" anything. At most, you've gotten rusty or forgotten stuff. Start using Perl more everything will snap back into place. Most of us are a lot smarter than we give ourselves credit for.

I just realized that I was using the same sig for nearly three years.