Ruby most certainly may be better than Perl - I don't know as I don't have that experience in Ruby. I hope I wasn't giving the impression that I think Perl is the be-all-end-all of languages (though I do think it gets closer than most). I too agree with Graham's assertion that some languages are better than others. I too know this for a fact - I have to work with JavaScript on a daily basis. :-)
What I am saying is that there are reasons why one should choose a language over another, some of which have little to do with the power of the language. I guess my intial reaction to your post was fueled because you were posting about readily-acknowledged short-comings in Perl. No problem, except you said "XYZ language doesn't have this problem" and didn't demonstrate how that was the case. Nor did you say "And this problem is easily circumvented by doing foobarbaz", which would have helped the rest of us poor schlubs who don't have the choice of changing languages at the moment.
Being right, does not endow the right to be rude; politeness costs nothing.
Being unknowing, is not the same as being stupid.
Expressing a contrary opinion, whether to the individual or the group, is more often a sign of deeper thought than of cantankerous belligerence.
Do not mistake your goals as the only goals; your opinion as the only opinion; your confidence as correctness. Saying you know better is not the same as explaining you know better.
