That's why I have only just begun with Perl. It is very different from VB but as I compare it most with vbscript (asp) in the web, I find it superior. And I like it for that.
What I don't like, it seems complicated, that often thing have "different meanings" == they are not strictly obvios. Why we write $array[1] and other strange things. It is often hard to find the right thing in the documentation. Especially when you are not english native speaker.
But what I also like in the documentation and community is the humor sometimes. And that Perl is free and with a community instead of a company.
I really can't say much competent about Perl, I can't compare it with PHP, because I don't know PHP. I don't know Java. I even don't know C. What can I say? Last time I asked a meditation question, I found many answers that gave me good ideas, what to do, what to learn etc. so I asked this, when it came to my mind. Hope you don't mind my question.

Edit by castaway - swapped square brackets for HTML entities