Yes. I would say that Perl was designed for two different types of programmer. I recommend the article "The Tyranny of Choice" in the April issue of SciAm. It distinguishes "maximizers" from "satisficers". To a satisficer, the learning curve of Perl looks quite shallow because they don't have to learn it all at once. To a maximizer, the learning curve of Perl looks very steep because they do feel that they have to learn it all at once--but that's what makes a maximizer happy, after all.

I confess that I am a maximizer. I am so obsessively maximizing in my approach to life that I have to strike a careful balance between maximizing and satisficing. And that's good enough for me... :-)