The rails-like thing that perl programmers need is ... Rails! As someone who used to use Perl for CGI and mod_perl and embedded perl (Mason/Embperl), Ruby is now my main focus. For me, one of the brilliant thing about ruby is it took everything I loved from perl. So there is nothing I miss. There is no reason to look back. Imitation might be the best form of flattery, but it also left perl as completely irrelevant for me. I was hoping someone could compile Ruby to Parrot but now I wonder if that will be finished.