In my view the “Perl Elitist code” is often going to be more terse because it uses modules and idioms. Further, because it was that kind of day at work where I have to maintain 12 year-old “functional code,” I’ll add: the “elitist” code is also not going to bite you in the ass viciously, repeatedly, and in dozens of minorly differing iterations because it was actually written to be general purpose, testable, and reusable. Hell, I hear tell the elitists are even known to use revision control. From time to time.