Perl is on the sure way to become the COBOL of the scripting world. I'm saying this as one who invested years into learning and applying Perl everywhere I could. But seriously, it's a done deal now. Move on.
Yes, there are still companies with large Perl code-bases. Large Perl code-bases need a lot of maintenance (sigh). So Perl programmers will be in some demand for a few years at the least. Hence the analogy to COBOL.
Wouldn't COBOL be classic scripting - one funny thing at BT we had a lifer COBOL guy (20 years plus on mainframes) join our perl team - he found the transition hard "where are the Divisions" was one quote from him
That's a little unfair. COBOL just isn't well suited to problems solved by a new web framework. Batch processing of financial data is important, but it ain't likely to generate buzz.
Point taken, but Perl has a (very) long history of being the glue the holds websites (and everything else) together. I think perl files in cgi-bin is the first time I ever connected a database to a web page.
COBOL has an even longer history processing business and financial data. Perhaps COBOL is the secret sauce that hedge funds use for high frequency trading?
That's entirely possible. Perl's trajectory in the past 7-8 years is, after all, consistent with all the stars staying and all the bad programmers leaving.
Yes, there are still companies with large Perl code-bases. Large Perl code-bases need a lot of maintenance (sigh). So Perl programmers will be in some demand for a few years at the least. Hence the analogy to COBOL.