@Ada Well, Perl's strength has always been that it has taken the good things from other sources and mashed them together in a way that gives it greater utility. Perl has always been a pragmatic language with a pragmatic community. Being the first at doing something doesn't mean it is the best. I prefer the quality of implementation that I get from most high-profile Perl projects than the newest shiny any day of the week. "Modern Perl" is the equivalent to Douglas Crockford's "JavaScript: The Good Parts". It is about avoiding the bad parts of the language and embracing the good parts.