Well, in my computing career, I have programmed in many languages - Fortran, COBOL, APL, Pascal, Algol, Simula, DEC PDP-11 Assembler, OS/370 Assembler, RPG III, Basic, C, Rexx and Perl. Not to mention a variety of shell style scripting languages (such as Unix shells, IBM S/38 and AS/400 CL).

Perl is just as much a "real" programming language as any I have used. It has its strengths - and its weaknesses too - but when used by competant programmers for appropriate purposes, it is just as sound, just as productive as any other programming language. I do not refer to Perl as "a scripting language". It has all the features and power of any programming language. I suspect Mr. Swaine is talking through is arse, as us Aussies would say.