Thank you, everyone, for your comments, suggestions, and/or support.

I've been mulling this over for quite some time; this isn't the first time that I've gotten some flak for using or wanting to use a "scripting" language in an enterprise application. I suppose that my problem really consists of two things:

• My coworkers are more concerned with the "latest and greatest industry standard" rather than leveraging the effectiveness of an existing tool or platform. To them Perl is old news, only good for writing throwaway scripts. Java is Big Business, and we've invested (wasted?) Big Money in our existing platform, which changes every year, continues to bloat, and eats our budget like candy corn.
• I've never stood my ground, pointed out the wasteful spending, or generally argued this point to anyone in our company who's in a place to do something about it until now.

What I'm actually fighting is a mindset. It's not that they don't know how or can't learn to code in Perl; they're just the kind of people who'll buy the first thing the vendor drops on the table and insist we use it, for better or worse.

I've decided to press the issue further, perhaps using subversion ("Oh, uh, I've already written a prototype in Perl... is that OK?"), or perhaps going the business route and making a dollars & cents case, or maybe both.

It matters to me on a somewhat personal level, not because I'm a proud Perl zealot or Java basher, but because I've recently agreed to move for the company and I've signed a contract obligating me for the next year. I personally don't want to live with and maintain crappy, troublesome software, de facto, for the next year.

Is this pursuit dangerous? Maybe. Is it worth it? Maybe.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. -- T.S. Elliot

  higle

Can I crash at your place if this backfires? -- Higle