I, like you, am not a professional programmer. My programming ability is just viewed as a bonus in my profession.

Perl, though, has made me into somebody who has a very low tolerance for other languages. Perl fits my life because:

1. It does not judge me. If I need to do something sloppy because it is a script that will be run one time, it lets me. If I want to create something elegant and expandable and easy to modify down the road, Perl is cool with that too.

2. CPAN. I recently caved in and started using it, and I get things done a million times faster than before (only slightly hyperbole).