Well the link in the original post sheds some light on this - it is a refreshingly flame-free discussion of the pros and cons of Perl/Ruby/Python. Lots of interesting stuff, with only 1 or 2 "Haha, that Perl code will give you nightmares " remarks.

The OP in that discussion said something like "Perl is ugly & encourages bad code", others said stuff about it being hard to maintain. I don't know how much this is considered opinion, and how much is just what people have been saying a lot of. All these languages are pertty flexible

Some of the Ruby examples made me wonder - I mean, there were several different Ruby solutions to the original problem, and if someone finds them *all* immediately intuitive, I'd like to shake his/her hand...At least 2 were a mess. So much for Perl encouraging bad code...

One Perl guru used to say that each new language you learn teaches you something about the one you know best. I shall certainly try and make time for some more Python and Ruby (and Lisp actually, and Object CAML is being talked about..:)). But I suspect I won't ditch Perl in any hurry...