I'm just as curious about the value of this exercise as I am the answers, but I wanted to request something. Originally, I wanted to as, is perl a unix utility or is it a language?. Then I realized, this has many dimensions and I'd rather not beg the continuum of answers upfront; but it's worth at least sharing this point. Anyway, this seems especially timely given the recent discussions on p5p and elsewhere about a whole lot of things related to [pP]erl.

Some politely requested ground rules:

• refrain from replying to anyone else (except OP)
• please don't ++ OP, I'm not doing this for XP (-- if you must, that's not the ask)
• upvote replies, this provides information/consensus
• refrain from downvoting sincere replies, even trolls/rants (for real)
• focus on your own perspective (this is not currently a debate or zero sum game)
• feel free to post anonymously
• post only once, feel free to edit/update your node as much as you want

Okay, so why am I doing this? For the children. (Seriously, I have a follow up about "the future"; but be patient). I'll probably give that in a few weeks. TIA

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