The operative term in the original statement and the follow-up question being "new." Haskell is almost the same age as Perl, as is Python and Ruby is just a few years younger. Either these things were always a better choice than Perl and Perl's success is just some bizarre aberration or Perl is still just as valid a choice. And Erlang is optimized for a very specific use case. I wouldn't attempt to use perl to parse client side DOM either. I looked at Scala the smallest bit a couple years ago and nothing leapt out to distinguish it. On the contrary, it seemed Perl-like without as much flexibility. Which obviously some feel is a strength. I disagree.

Use Perl for what you want. Call it a niche tool if you prefer. If you find general attitudes to Perl to be "it's no good," don't expect your attitude to do anything but cement the views. Well, sure it's okay for prototyping web stuff but why go to all the trouble to learn such a messy, goddawful language just do hello world in a webpage? I mean, you can parse a log file with awk."

I use strictures or equivalent in scripts. I also write one-liners all day. If I had to qualify variables and namespaces and return values and… for them, I'd start looking for another tool. Perl lets you be a lousy hacker without complaint, it's true, but it also doesn't get in your way at all when you know what you're doing. Professional tools have fewer safety features than kids’ toys and institutional, packer-oriented workflows.

Happened across this yesterday right after commenting in this thread and it seemed very pointed to me–

With regard to the “wrong equipment” … Unlike most musicians, Josh Homme doesn’t just dabble in a bit of engineering when necessary, but has a genuine love for the métier. “I love [music] engineering… …I found over the years that if everyone is using something, it can’t be that good!” soundonsound.com/sos/feb10/articles/homme.htm