There is a lot of Java V's Perl *advocacy*. Usually resulting in leaps of Aristotelian logic as to why one language is superior to (all) others.

*Top 10 reasons Perl kicks {insert favourtite popular language}*

Has anyone ever written a list of questions to fire to people who want to advacate another language over Perl?

There's nothing you can do in Perl that you can't do in Java

I laugh when I see this. So you use Java for *everything*? Langauges are tools. Use the correct tool for the task at hand. To pick an extreme example try using Java regular expressions for a project. Then compare the results using Perl regex's. This is but one example.

...how him that Perl is a truly elegant language and can do whatever Java does in less time...

This is a tall order. What problems are you trying to solve? Is your work server side? Database intensive? Web transaction based? If you problems fall within the *strengths* of Perl you may be able to create a more convincing argument.