Perl's 21st anniversary of release is next Thursday, 18 December. Perl 5 is already 14 years old. Though the language has seen many changes since 1994, it can't stand still. Perl 5.10 added many wonderful features and Perl 6 will change the landscape for programming languages, but what's the vision for Perl 5? How can the language stay relevant?

Lately, the Perl language has had less buzz surrounding it than many other languages and development environments, but Perl is still a key component on the Internet.

"...With all this depressing talk you might be discouraged from trying Perl. Don’t be. I could now sit here and enumerate a great list of reasons for you to use Perl today, but, if I did, as though I was the holder of a religious-like truth, it might cause too much controversy. And I don’t want that. Therefore, here are the reasons why I personally use Perl.

"...Perl 6 is a rewrite of the Perl language. It will feel Perly, and yet become more modern as it pulls in influences from languages like Ruby and Haskell.

Technically, Perl 6 is just a language specification, and there are at least two implementations underway..."

"What sort of programmer uses Perl? Do most Perl programmers use it as a primary language, or just write the occasional script? ..."

If you ask for the languages of the moment, you will hear people talk about Ruby, C#, JavaScript, Erlang, Python or even Haskell. You probably won't hear Perl mentioned. Perl's current standing is like that of JavaScript a few years ago.

"I have just finished learning the programming language Perl, and let me tell you, this is one amazing language. It can do almost anything! It's very easy to learn if you have a knowledge of C or C++. If you don't, I suggest learning Python first..."

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier.

The Perl Foundation has migrated Perl 5 to the Git version control system, making it easier than ever for Perl's development team to continue to improve the language that powers many websites.