The strengths of perl have been more than adequately covered by fellow monks elsewhere on this thread, so I won't (& don't even need to) even begin to contribute on that score.
I would, however, as a perl advocate/evangelist, submit the following as potential weaknesses of the language...
- From the numerous experiences of watching/overseeing others learn the language, not to have a *NIX background appears to be significantly disadvantageous - if for no other reasons than the lack of appreciation of either regular expressions or *NIX-like tools.
- Furthermore, the majority of learners come from a background whereby language of choice imposes definitive rules & constraints whereas, as we all know, in perl, TIMTOWTDI - both of which appear to combine to cause no end of problems in this scenario. IMCO, this appears to be especially prevalent where the incumbent only has Java as a previous language - a mindset seemingly requiring disproportionate effort to overcome. A problem exacerbated when Eclipse is the development environment of choice - fine for Java, but despite the commendable best efforts of the E-P-I-C project, IMO, very poor for perl.
I appreciate that the latter could be overcome to some degree thro' the use of suitable coding standards etc. ... but I've found that this only addresses maybe 10 - 15 % of the problem - the beast, though tamed slightly, obstinately remains to be overcome.
...just my 10 penn'orth
A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))