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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why Perl?
Because Perl is the "glue" or "duct tape," if you will, of the internet.
As a fairly experienced Ruby on Rails developer I am receiving a couple of phone calls a week from recruitment companies (in Sydney). They are desperate for people. That should tell you all you need to know. Web is where it's at. Django has much less penetration. Rails is still fairly rare but it's gaining momentum in business (finally) and IMO it's a very good thing to know right now. Your PHP skills will be a big p…
You gotta go with Perl. You'll thank me later.
For most web development projects, PHP is fine. If you are looking to learn something totally new, why not go for something like Smalltalk, Erlang, Lisp or some other language that's quite different from Ruby, Python and PHP?.
If you are looking to learn something that will help your web development skills, then make sure you are very strong with Javascript and a framework such as Jquery before looking to other languages.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because Perl is the "glue" or "duct tape," if you will, of the internet.
That was succinct observation in its day, but I hardly think it applies now. Things have changed a whole lot. That's not to say perl can't be used today, but its relative value has decreased. "Duct tape" is no longer the ambition to admire.
When you were advised to consider Ruby over Python, what reason were you given? Also, you may not be aware but this is an almost daily question on StackOverflow so I would advise looking there also.
Everyone has said Python is simple, simple, simple, though.
If you've written a PHP app, maybe it's a good candidate for rewriting in these languages. Having a problem space that you're intimately familiar with can reduce the variables to just the languages or frameworks themselves.
You should start with Perl. Then think about doing Python or Ruby.
Why Perl?
As a fairly experienced Ruby on Rails developer I am receiving a couple of phone calls a week from recruitment companies (in Sydney). They are desperate for people. That should tell you all you need to know. Web is where it's at. Django has much less penetration. Rails is still fairly rare but it's gaining momentum in business (finally) and IMO it's a very good thing to know right now. Your PHP skills will be a big p…
Rails is ok for now, but it's just a fad. You gotta go with Perl. You'll thank me later.
And really, companies are going to look at you strangely if you say "1 year Perl experience". They'll think "why on earth is someone learning Perl in 2009". No, go with one of the newer languages - python or ruby.