I have used "Cheers" since before I learned Perl. I saw it on Usenet, thought it sounded friendly, and used it.

Since then I have heard that it started there as a joke. A bunch of people decided to use the name of their favorite TV show as a sign-off. Many people at the time liked Cheers. Other people saw that sign-off and adopted it. (The other TV shows didn't survive.)

No idea whether that is the real history, but it makes for a nice story. :-)

So, why would more Perl people use it than Java ones? I would guess that Perl culture did a lot of its evolving on Usenet, and so picked up a few Usenetisms.

Cheers,
Anonymous Distributer of Cheer