While Perl's target market had traditionally been rather UNIX-centric, I think that this is no longer the case. More and more people are using Perl on WIN32 and Mac. In fact, most desktops are indeed WIN32 (I don't like it either).

With that said, I think that the misconceptions about Perl are largely based on most people thinking that it is strictly a web scripting language. People don't realize that this wonderful language has been used to develop enterprise-type solutions for large corporations.

In fact, many hardware design tools/suites (on UNIX and WIN32) use Perl as part of their API because of its flexibility and power. We also use Perl as part of our software distribution system here at work (on UNIX and WIN32).

I would not want to take the UNIX flavour away from Perl because I think therein lies its power. If someone does not know UNIX commands and the like, then it's about time they learned them. After all, if someone's not willing to learn a little, why do they even bother programming or doing anything for that matter?

Try not to think of Perl's unique features as warts but rather as beauty marks.