Is Perl a dying language?

Perl has been a major player in the programming world since its inception in the late 1980s. While some people question its relevance today, calling it a "dying language" oversimplifies the situation. The truth is more nuanced, shaped by Perl's unique strengths, changing ecosystems, and evolving developer needs.

Understanding Perl's Current Status

Perl was once the go-to language for CGI scripting, system administration, and text processing—thanks to its pragmatic motto "There's more than one way to do it" (TMTOWTDI). This flexibility and Perl's powerful regular expression engine still give it advantages in many niches, particularly bioinformatics, network programming, and legacy system maintenance.

However, with the rise of languages like Python, Ruby, and JavaScript, you see fewer new projects choosing Perl as their primary language. This shift has to do with factors such as:

• Community and ecosystem: Other languages have larger, more active communities and richer libraries for modern tasks, especially in web frameworks and data science.
• Language evolution: Perl has modernized (Perl 5.10+ introduced features like say, state, and defined-or operators). Perl 6 (now Raku) is spun off as a separate language. This split has confused some users and slowed adoption.
• Hiring and learning: Perl's syntax and idioms—like sigils, context sensitivity, and the principle of TMTOWTDI—can pose a steeper learning curve, especially for beginners.

Despite this, Perl is far from "dead." It's still actively maintained and used. Perl 5.36 and 5.38 (released in 2022 and 2023) continue to enhance the language, adding modern syntax and performance improvements. Organizations relying on legacy Perl codebases keep it alive in production.

Why Perl Still Matters

• Text processing power: Perl's regular expressions and text manipulation are second to none.
• CPAN: The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network offers thousands of reusable modules.
• System scripting: Perl scripts often serve as glue code for Linux and UNIX system tasks.
• Proven stability: Large legacy codebases demonstrating Perl’s reliability.

Example: Demonstrating Perl's Expressive Power

This short script shows Perl making readable output using some modern Perl features (available since Perl 5.10):

use strict;
use warnings;
use feature qw(say state);

# State variables remember their values between calls
sub counter {
    state $count = 0;
    return ++$count;
}

say "Is Perl dying?";
say "Let's count how many times we've checked:";

for (1..5) {
    say "Check #", counter();
}

# Regular expression example: extract words starting with capital letters
my $text = "Perl and Python are popular programming languages.";
say "Words starting with capital letters:";
while ($text =~ /\b([A-Z]\w*)\b/g) {
    say " - $1";
}

This example highlights several Perl idioms:

• use feature 'say' enables easier printing of lines.
• State variables (state) allow persistent function state without globals.
• Context and regex captures simplify text processing.

Common Pitfalls to Keep in Mind

• Perl's context-sensitive behavior means code can behave differently in scalar vs list context, which can confuse newcomers.
• The flexibility (TMTOWTDI) can sometimes lead to less maintainable code if not disciplined.
• CPAN modules are powerful but can be overwhelming to choose from—sometimes leading to "module overload."

Summary

Calling Perl "dying" misses its ongoing role in many domains and its passionate, if smaller, community. While it’s no longer the dominant language it once was, it remains a reliable, expressive tool well-suited for specific problem domains, particularly text processing and system scripting.

If you want to explore or maintain legacy systems, learn powerful text manipulation, or contribute to bioinformatics and system tools, Perl remains a viable and rewarding choice.