"As simple as a JSON-aware guestbook backend for an AJAX website" is not a baby speak project. Besides what you list, people need to also understand: the stateless nature of HTTP, markup, JavaScript, the container the browsers provide for JavaScript, asynchronous server calls in JavaScript or some toolkit which abstracts them away, a database or filesystem storage solution for the data, what JSON is, How JSON can be useful, Perl, permissions and paths in general, CGI, some sort of security practices related to XSS, some security principles related to their backend data storage, and how to use an editor. There are plenty more I could list.

Getting started using baby speak means that to do something terribly simple, you don't need to specify a great deal of modules and type in a bunch of syntax. Compare Perl to COBOL or even Java. (The programs were found at the linked sites, and are their respective property. Used without explicit permission.): 

print "Hello, World!";

[download]
000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID.     HELLOWORLD.
000300
000400*
000500 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000600 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
000700 SOURCE-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000800 OBJECT-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000900
001000 DATA DIVISION.
001100 FILE SECTION.
001200
100000 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
100100
100200 MAIN-LOGIC SECTION.
100300 BEGIN.
100400     DISPLAY " " LINE 1 POSITION 1 ERASE EOS.
100500     DISPLAY "Hello world!" LINE 15 POSITION 10.
100600     STOP RUN.
100700 MAIN-LOGIC-EXIT.
100800     EXIT.

[download]
class myfirstjavaprog
{  
        public static void main(String args[])
        {
           System.out.println("Hello World!");
        }
}

[download]
There's simply no way to compare your idea of a "simple" programming task to that. Getting started in a language and writing one's first semi-serious application with bells, whistles, and buzzword compliance built in are two very different things.

In reply to Re^3: On the scaleability of Perl Development Practices by mr_mischief
in thread On the scaleability of Perl Development Practices by jdrago_999

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