PLease read some of the other responses to this sort of question on PerlMonks, and this article. To my mind, one of the strongest arguments against this "Unsuitability of the language itself for large-scale development" accusation is the large web-based businesses that chose perl over java, like Amazon, TicketMaster, parts of Yahoo, and CitySearch. The only truly large commerce site I know that makes extensive use of Java is eBay.