Perl is actually far from abandoned and I would venture to guess (based on no facts and figures but my own personal experience) that there are more lines of Perl in production today than Python or Ruby combined.
But how can that be?! Building a large scale application with Perl would be like building a F111A Aardvark out of duct tape! Quite simply, because Perl is the perfect duct tape. Too many people (knowingly or not) think of Perl as a crappy version of Python when it's actually shell scripting on steroids.
You see, way up here, where projects are constantly in development, paradigms are constantly shifting, and people are building new and exciting things, Perl is an unwelcome high school acquaintance who shows up at the party and makes everybody feel awkward and bad. But way down there, where people are just trying to keep Sputnik up and running until the Soviet Union collapses, Perl is a rock star! If it's too "small" for Java but too "large" for .ksh -- guess what, use Perl.
In my opinion, if you want a scripting language with function signatures, little to no support for UNIX commands, real object orientation (Moose), yadda yadda yadda... just use Python. No one's going to blame you. Larry Wall's not gonna feel bad. You have a right to your impact gun and bolts.
But how can that be?! Building a large scale application with Perl would be like building a F111A Aardvark out of duct tape! Quite simply, because Perl is the perfect duct tape. Too many people (knowingly or not) think of Perl as a crappy version of Python when it's actually shell scripting on steroids.
You see, way up here, where projects are constantly in development, paradigms are constantly shifting, and people are building new and exciting things, Perl is an unwelcome high school acquaintance who shows up at the party and makes everybody feel awkward and bad. But way down there, where people are just trying to keep Sputnik up and running until the Soviet Union collapses, Perl is a rock star! If it's too "small" for Java but too "large" for .ksh -- guess what, use Perl.
In my opinion, if you want a scripting language with function signatures, little to no support for UNIX commands, real object orientation (Moose), yadda yadda yadda... just use Python. No one's going to blame you. Larry Wall's not gonna feel bad. You have a right to your impact gun and bolts.
Just leave my duct tape alone.