tachyon's comments are right on the mark as far as what I've seen and heard, especially TIMTOWTDI.

An item left out is that Perl is the choice of sysadmins, as such, they learn code without peer-review (Their peers only know that the code works and makes their life easier). Only those who aspire to more than just system administration scripts discover the importance of good coding practices.

A new trend that is putting a bad light on Perl is what I'm labeling the NTification of Unix. More and more applications are being developed on NT and ported to Unix. The dependency on NT GUI developement by the so-called educated programmers is separating the fundamental knowlege of the power of TCPIP and Unix from these 'skilled' coders. Therefor in the eyes of those that do review code 'Perl sucks'. Around our organization anyone that develops at a command line is said to enjoy coding in 'the dark places'.

In metaphoric over simplification; A person that learns an instrument from a teacher and studies music theory can develop the ability to write music that will find a degree of approval from other educated musicians. But the kid that learns how to play a single instrument by banging on it till it sounds the way want it to, will never be accepted by that same crowd as a real musician. Ironically these unreal musicians have the opportunity to make more $$$ than classically trained musicians because of the unique intimacy they have with their instrument and their music.