It depends what you're using it for. Certainly it wouldn't make sense to use it for web stuff. However I use perl exclusively for server-side "shell" scripting, and it excels at that. More powerful than bash, less compatibility worries than python (I've had issues even between 2.* versions). If I have perl5.* on a server my scripts work everywhere. I regularly start new server-side scripting projects using perl, including a recent webpage-to-video conversion batch script. To be honest there is no other platform that I would even consider using for this kind of thing. Is there even anything that comes close to perl's cross-platform, rapid development, stability and general compatibility?

I dunno, on Arch I've seen several times as Perl 5.x updates roll in, Perl scripts will break on stuff. Especially Perl 5.22 and 5.26.

That's because of binary API changes, and only affects Perl modules with C parts in them. Source compatibility has been preserved at least across the entire 5.x line.

Python?