When I first saw perl, it was one of those scripts you find for free out on the internet (you know the kind i am sure.). That script did what i needed it to, but it was a horrible mess. My first thought was, how do i program this in something besides perl because perl is such an obvious mess. Now looking back I understand that it wasn't perl, but the author that was a mess. We all know perl is a language that allows messy programming, this fact carries over to his comments on perl 6. When i first started with perl 6 (pugs if you will) I thought this is crazy, why did they make it so complex. After a little programming you find out that perl 6 is actualy quite a bit simpler and has more DWIMery than ever before, it just happens that it doesn't look like the perl we all know.

That all said my point is this, his comments on perl where that of a market share of books. I would think that langauge that don't make much since will NEED more books and that this might be some of the reason you see large shares of books for those other languages. The other is that perl is meant for programmers, granted programmers without the time (or desire) to write in c++. As a programmer my self i own only two perl books, read both ciover to cover and havn't felt the need to buy anymore (and i love books).

Since my point still seems to have eluded me let me just say, perl is incredibly usefuly, and perl 6 is even more soo. So I don't think his comments where realy bad or good, he kind of side stepped the question, but my answer is ... yes perl is more relevant now than ever in its history.