I would expect Perl to do quite well in comparisons to other languages. Much of the langauge is EXTREMELY optimized, so programs written in Perl would run at least 80% as fast as a comparable one written in C/C++. Besides, you can always compile Perl into C for even a faster runtime. I've also heard that a Perl interpreted program runs faster than a comparable Java bytecode program as well. In the size of code catagory, Perl would win hands down (can anyone say "one liners"? :p ). Finally, I don't see why modules wouldn't be allowed. Modules are one of Perl's main strenghts, and speed up development time tremendously. All in all, I think Perl would stack up very well.