Python may be great, but its mandatory indenting keeps me from trying

You definitly should try it, it is fun to code in python (though I didn't in the last nearly 2years, alas). The only thing I don't like is the inevitable OO-approach to regexps, but they have a real cute extension to perls: named captures (you can give names to the capturing parenthesis).

While an anonymous sub is cool, a lambda as the function-arg to reduce did always put a smile on my face ;)

I wouldn't do most of my admin-stuff and a lot of other work-stuff in perl if I followed this road: I hate(d) the sigils, and I was absolutly sure never to use perl.
Well, I had to code a german public-health forum (external link) using slashcode. And now I'm in love with perl.

Don't let such a thing fool you, in my experience you miss more in not using languages for such reasons, than the language looses in you not using it :-)
always play a wee bit with it, beeing even if you're doing it for nothing else than to despise it for well-founded reasons.

kind regards,
tomte

Edit:s/linke/like/

Hlade's Law:

If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person --
they will find an easier way to do it.