Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Or was it ... beerholder? ;-) I'm one of the few Czechs that don't drink beer, so I don't know for sure. In either case I find Perl pretty enough. And even though I'm all for simplicity in dressing, I do like the sigils and other ornamentation of Perl. OTOH, eg. Visual Basic is simply ghastly. Like a row of dull, concrete block of flats. No ornaments, no room for fantasy, no room for living.