CPAN vs RubyForge vs PyPI isn't exactly an appropriate comparison.

Take a look at:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=python%2C+perl%2C+ruby&ct...

vs

http://www.google.com/trends?q=cpan%2C+pypi%2C+rubyforge&...

Google Trends isn't a great measurement tool, but the 3 languages have similar search volumes (with Perl declining, Python stable and Ruby ascending), yet CPAN is has a much higher volume than either RubyForge and PyPI. I think the relevance of each repository to its language community isn't comparable.

I think new lines of code being written is a pretty appropriate metric. The assertion is that Perl is dead or dying rapidly (the COBOL of web development), but the sheer number of new lines of code being written in Perl (the accelerating number of contributions to CPAN means that more new lines of code are being written today in Perl than 6 years ago) makes that a nonsensical assertion. Python and Ruby don't have to be unpopular for Perl to remain popular. They don't have to be killing Perl to be doing well...they are doing well, growing rapidly, etc. But so is Perl.

That's my only point. Dynamic languages are growing in popularity, and Perl is among them. And, if Perl doesn't grow as fast as Ruby and Python, that's fine, too. It'll still be a few years before Python and Ruby catch up to Perl in usage and lines of code and number of projects. (And none of them will ever catch up to PHP. JavaScript might, though.)

Actually Google Trends is a great measurement tool. You just have to know how to use it and understand what the measurements actually are ;-)

Checkout these two instead....

http://www.google.com/trends?q=python+scripting%2C+perl+scri...

http://www.google.com/trends?q=python+programming%2C+perl+pr...

In fact all languages have declined. Which isn't surprising because Google Trends is just showing you the frequency of these search terms used over time.

There is a lot more things to search for now on the web compared to 2004!

If Ruby is ascending, then Python is declining. It seems more like both of them are stable. I can't see a significant difference, especially compared to Perl's noticeable fall. However, there may also be other noise (snakes and gems) polluting the search statistics.

Publishers put their stuff on github now, there's more packages there than RubyForge.

While the language is still growing, the direct point ESR is making is that there is a lot of legacy Perl code in use, and this is not likely to change soon.

I took it to mean that Perl was like COBOL: Nobody is writing new software with it, but there's so much code out there that people will be maintaining it for years to come. While the latter is true, the former is not...so Perl is distinctly unlike COBOL in every possible way except that there is a large installed base of legacy code in the language (which applies to every popular language ever, including Python at this point).