Perl has many features familiar to users of sh/bash. For admins who often deal with shell scripts, it's an easy reach to use Perl for all sorts of little things.

That said, I think you can still be responsible and use Python instead. ;) Might take you a few more keystrokes though.

agree with that. perl is tremendous for sysadmin tasks.

we've had 90% complete python tools rewritten from scratch in perl because perl is so superior.

disclaimer: i'm a recovering ex-sysadmin

Wait. If I'm reading that right, you had utils written in Python that were 90% finished but then rewrote them in Perl and got them working.

What about Python was getting you stuck at 90%?