zlacker

>>speckx+(OP)
Python killed Perl.

By the time Perl 6 was around, Perl's lunch was already eaten by Python. Only a few table scraps left. Perl 6 would have had to be a better Perl 5 and a better Python 2 to win.

Python came with better batteries and better syntax. It allowed producing code you could read and understand a week later. Perl I found was a write-only language for me. I went back looking at my old Perl code and I couldn't decipher it without some effort.

And Python became popular not just because it was a better Perl, but it attracted folks who used Java and C++. CPU speeds were getting fast enough that you could actually do file and network IO at acceptable speeds without all the `public static void main(String[] args)` and `System.out.println(...)` boilerplate, but still had all the object oriented bits like inheritance and composition with which you could go crazy with if you wanted.

>>rdtsc+nv1
Personal anecdote in support: my first job out of college was at a data-analysis company, where my task was usually to write one-off scripts to extract data from various data sources and massage it into the format the analysts wanted for their spreadsheets. I wrote most of those scripts in Perl at first, with the odd Bash script here and there. Then one of my coworkers said "Hey, if you like Perl, you'll love Python". I learned Python (2.1 was the most recent version at the time, which tells you how old this story is) and almost immediately switched over. All my new one-off data-extraction scripts from then on were written in Python (though still with the odd Bash script here and there).