Uh ... no. Perl poetry is not plain text converted to Perl. It's Perl given a context humans can interpret other than as a computer program. You can write Java poetry and C++ poetry. I'm not sure it would be as pretty, but it's do-able. (Heck, you can write ASM poetry, but I have no idea who would find that interesting. Still, people like piano-playing involving 2x4's ... it takes all types, I guess.)

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.