Perl is not dead if you're keeping track of the language. While the development of the core language seems to have shuffled off the mortal coil, CPAN is more active today than ever before.

However, if this belief keeps up outside the community, it will ensure the decline of Perl. There are few new high-profile projects in Perl as it is.

I'm happy there's a recent brouhaha in the Perl community in an effort to market better. Unfortunately, the language is still what it is, which is a pity, because people then ignore the rest of the package. CPAN alone is reason enough to select Perl over all the other popular dynamically-typed languages, but most outsiders never get far enough to realize that.