Perl was my gateway programming language. As a kid, I experimented with various flavors of BASIC, Logo, and even a bit of 6502 assembly. But my engagement with Perl was longer-lasting and more consequential. Perl is no longer my tool of choice, and hasn't been for years. But on reflection, I think there are reasons that it that it was a good fit at that time that it was.
In its disdain for academic categories and focus on getting the job done quickly if not necessarily elegantly, Perl embraces an ethos not entirely unlike the DIY ethic associated with punk rock. Punk musicians, unencumbered by music theory or the bounds of conventional good taste, found expressive power in the brief and determined application of a few predictable chords; Perl "hackers", often armed with little more than regular expressions and an acquaintance with the Perl Hash, have accomplished a great deal with improvised CGI scripts and one-line data transforms.
Practitioners of more disciplined languages have frequently condemned the non-conformist excesses of Perl culture. Python countered the anarchic exuberance of TMTOWTDI ("There's More Than One Way To Do It") with TOOWTDI ("There's Only One Way To Do It"). Although I later came to appreciate a more rigorous approach to the craft of making software, I am grateful to the artistic license which characterizes the Perl Way for making it possible to get started on what became my career.
