Perl is outdated? In what way? Learning Perl is not the best way?
Who says X, Y and Z are more developed?

If you go to a site that is Pro-PHP, Pro-Java, Pro-Perl or Pro-whatever, then it's not uncommon to find people who give positive comments in regard to that language. What is required is sensible logical and objective thinking.

I find I use Perl in most cases, because it does everything that I want and need. Don't take somebody else's word, find out what you need/want to do and assess which is the right tool for the job(s).

PHP is still in vogue in the WWW world, and that's fine. I wouldn't take PHP out of the web-application environment either. Why would you when there is already Perl ;) 'PHP or Java' and Perl, are like 'Cheese' and 'Chalk'. That's the way I see it anyway.

-- Perl has a much larger scope.