In a dark parallel universe, where Perl was never invented, I would write my programs

• in c (k&r-style, of course)
• in java - I want to be on the winner-side of the tiobe index once
• as unix shell scripts, using lots of calls to grep and awk
• in php, python or any other programming language starting with 'p'
• in c++ ... but I would miss moose on every keystroke
• in cobol, however probably not out of my free will
• in lisp ... now there is no excuse left not to learn it
• using ancient runes
• in another programming language
• if I can't have Perl I'd rather not program at all...