It seems that after pressing hard enough, he finally complains that, because Perl reads in its source code directly (rather than a bytecoded compiled version), it's therefore inferior to 'compiled' languages.

Does a Perl program run directly not count as a serious program while the same program run from PAR does?

"sure, but try to write a complex server using Perl!"

Perhaps POE or Soap::Lite or Stem would do?

Once the program's running, does it matter what form the program takes on disk? Does a "compiled" and statically typed language block on input from a network socket any faster than an "uncompiled" dynamically-typed language?

Then again, I try not to argue with people who believe that magic fairies live in your CPU and interpret binaries directly. Eventually, they'll realize that it's not 1970 anymore.