Perl 5 is in decline, no doubt. But it isn't because whomever you're visualizing when you wrote the above is an annoying nerd. People can and do disagree on the 'why'; I personally think it is the general decline of Unix-style syntax combined with the natural ebb and flow of language evolution.
If "what you've seen" is watching the compiler developers work through language design, the origin of your misconception at least makes a little sense, even if that's obviously a weird, unfair basis.
By all means, hate on perlmonks.org if you like. Just don't spread insulting nonsense.
That's what programming is.
In my realm I need things to be supportable by lots of people. I use languages that are modern + people want to use, I document like crazy, I use opinionated frameworks that have good track records, I need to hire engineers that can support the code I/others write, etc etc. I don't find your comment to be true, and will even go as far to say I've worked with very clean legacy code.
Tangential: If you look at any "popularity of language" studies Perl has been on a downward spiral for over a decade. Ex: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/perl/
I see "well that's just x" as a poor argument for, well... anything.
Oh man, in 1996 I was at Nortel. Some Ms. C. in Computer Science (no longer with the company) left behind Perl cruft whose indentation levels didn't even match up:
whatever
{
}
I've seen a lot of negligently written code with broken windows on the surface, that deep down turns out to be criminally insane.
If somebody's doesn't give a shit enough to indent their code, they usually don't give a shit enough to design it either.
The only Perl I use these days is oooooooold software (MRTG) I guess with the exception of Spam Assassin and RT...
Anymore Grafana backed by InfluxDB w/Telegraf is my jam for the same general problem set (TIG stack).
RRD is pretty efficient so I don't have much need to change.
> there should be a cryptocurrency based on Proof of Spam Assassination
Did you know that the blocking proof-of-work algorithm in Bitcoin today, derives from the Hashcash proof-of-work algorithm, which was originally designed to prove you are not a spammer!!
Only if you chose to write perl code in this way. The same could be said for many languages
That's exactly why I've never mentioned Java on my resume (or in earlier times, Visual Basic) =D
Every time Perl comes up in a professional environment for me I'm reluctant to say I'm capable, because it's always a hacked-together mess from an engineer who's likely no longer with the company. (obviously this is VERY anecdotal to my career)
I dropped Perl from my resume about a decade ago because I just frankly don't want to work with it. The language is terse, and I don't think anyone who's starting off these days would be spending their time well by learning it. Make your own opinions, but mine is/has always been "ewww."