Some tools are appropriate for particular situations. Most are better off being entirely replaced. There are thousands of programming languages out there, while the ideal toolbox would contain dozens at most; our industry badly needs some pruning. We need to have these conversations, and they're not going to be easy precisely because we're emotionally attached to our tools, but frankly if you're really so detached as you claim you shouldn't have a problem with people attacking Perl. These discussions are not as evidence-based as we'd like because the evidence simply isn't there, on either side; anecdotes are not the ideal way to learn, but they're a lot better than nothing.
> The data used as evidence are StackOverflow analyses, or Tiobe scores, or, insert additional popular, and often self-selected, data sets. You have to make specific assumptions about some of the data presented to be able to accept it, such that each community has about the same rate of people searching for answers on SO, or other places. Or that the searches will have relevant terms in the in each case.
> This is a stretch to put it mildly. If I google for DBIx::Simple, and this search is caught by one of these filters, will it show up in Perl or not? I can't actually answer this. I have to refer to what the collectors of the data say on their own methodology [1][2]. I am not saying that there are not secular changes throughout the industry, or that various observed gross trends are "wrong". What I am saying is be careful reading into these analyses too strongly, as they may not be measuring what you think they are measuring.
No measure is perfect, but we're seeing similar trends from multiple sources and they align with my own experience as well. I don't see any value in throwing shade on the measures we have. If you have specific criticisms or reasons they might systematically favour one language or another then by all means post them; otherwise this reads like rearguard sowing doubt because you don't like the results.
> In many cases, over the last 20 years or so, I've seen folks pushing Python happily talking up why they left or abhor Perl, usually saying/quoting things they've heard. From my own experience, Perl 4 and onward, much of what they complain about was Perl 4 or before. Likely before many of them started programming. That is speculation on my part, but it does appear to fit what I've observed.
Now you're the one bashing for self gratification. Is it so hard to believe that people might genuinely have bad experiences with your preferred language?
> I am comfortable and competent in 5-6 at any one time, and can easily work in Python, C, Julia, Node, etc. w/o major issue (though with google nearby for things I don't have on the tip of my memory).
Those are pretty similar languages, or at least admit a similar style of programming; if you want a good toolbox you'd do better to learn a smaller number of more radically different languages. 5-6 languages is far too many to know particularly within a narrow range like this; I'd bet that you're not writing idiomatic code in many of them. I used to pride myself on knowing a large number of languages; now I've realised being able to do more in one language is much more useful.