Yes this is a problem. I think that this idea of Perl is beacuse we can use it for everything. And once some idiot saw that Perl can be used like shell script, and think that it's a shell language. And the same for CGI, DB, GUI, etc...

I work with many languages (C/C++,Java,Python,VB), but I still prefer Perl, much more. C/C++ is good only for speed. But Perl speed is good, better than Java (Java is a turtle ahaha) and VB (yes M$-VB too), and the memory management is better than all, or similar to C (saw a good article about this but can find it now).

If you want to tell to someone, that doesn't use Perl, that it's a good language and is a good choice for commercial projects, just say: Yahoo is made with Perl, no comments...

... or try to teach Perl to him! ;-P

More meditation:
This just tell how humans are stupid (yes we are). We go with the waves, not with the brain or knowledge. Java was there only because it has a good marketing over it. Perl doesn't have the marketing, only the monks. ;-)

Graciliano M. P.
"The creativity is the expression of the liberty".