Well, Cop, you've racked up quite a distinctive level of performance in the few days you've been posting here at PerlMonks. Apart from the occasional node that has been reaped to erase a pointless insult, I notice a fairly consistent tone of negativity on your part toward the use of Perl, and a matching negativity on the part of readers toward your posts.

Since PerlMonks is a site whose whole purpose is to support the use (and users) of Perl, the tone of your posts is an obvious and consistent mismatch. The response that other readers have shown by means of voting on your posts has made it clear how much we value your contribution of complaints, dismissals, bleak projections and overall rejection of Perl.

I appreciate the invitation to "think about it". Some of the people I work with prefer Python (which I haven't used seriously yet) for a variety of tasks, and in a couple of those areas, my own skill with Perl has not yet reached the stage where I could match what they are doing. So I actually think about this sort of language-comparison thing fairly often.

It's not that Perl can't do the tasks in question. My main case in point involves using the Qt graphics library to build GUI's that support Arabic and bi-directional text display in a manner that is legible to Arabic speakers. (To the best of my knowledge, this cannot be done with Perl/Tk, which is the only graphics package I've had practice with.)

There are Qt modules on CPAN that tie Perl into those libraries and would let me do what my colleagues are doing in Python. I just need to learn Qt, and that, quite frankly, is just a matter of finding documentation and/or sample code that's as good as what I get with Perl (and the Perl/Tk modules), so that I have a better chance of catching on quickly once I really get started.

(The first time I tried, a few years ago, I didn't find such docs for Qt, let alone adequate docs or sample code for the Perl API to Qt. I haven't looked again recently, but I hope the situation has improved. In fact, I know it has, because I've seen some Perl/Qt posts here at the Monastery.)

In any case, I'd like to suggest that your time could be better spent looking for a site similar to PerlMonks that supports whatever language you find preferable to Perl. Go to that site, and contribute positive and useful information to support the use (and users) of that other language (or other languages, if you like a bunch of them).

For example, if Python is your thing, maybe there's a Python site with lots of daily, detail-oriented discussions among Guido, authors of prominent Python books, professionals with years of Python experience, journeyman programmers and novices trying to catch on. Go there and pitch in. When I need to learn Python, I hope I'll find it, and maybe you can help me out.

If there is no such site for the language(s) of your choice, and you are starving for a good place to talk constructively about programming, come back to PerlMonks -- but be ready and willing to make a positive contribution to this community.