Perl's decline was cultural

>>todsac+(OP)
Python is mentioned and I think the key reason it's continued to grow while Perl declined, is a vastly more welcoming culture.

Python says you know nothing, but want to automate a small task. The community will help you. More so than any other language.

Then again, Python 2 and Python 3 are two different languages.

Very few projects are willing to have such a massive migration.

>>999900+U2
"Willing" is an interesting word choice. There was quite a bit of resistance in the Python world despite the clear benefits. (2.x really could not be fixed, because the semantics were fundamentally broken in many places.)

>>zahlma+56
It's open source.

Any one ( and I'm sure a few have tried) can fork 2.x and keep using it.

3.x is remarkably easy , you can probably onboard a non programer to Python in a month.

>>999900+M7
> Any one ( and I'm sure a few have tried) can fork 2.x and keep using it.

They have tried and succeeded: https://docs.activestate.com/activepython/2.7/

I still consider the result "broken".

zlacker