Perl is the only "big" scripting language in OpenBSD base system. A lot of people still use it for things from quick scripts to full applications. Just a few years ago I was working for a company that managed all DB inventory through Perl and DBI (PostgreSQL and Oracle). I maintained that codebase (something like 20,000 lines of Perl, not counting CPAN modules) and added features as needed, and never ran into the "write once" problem that people often allude to, despite only having met with the original author of that code once. If you simply adopt good practices and write solid code, Perl is a fine choice for many projects. The problem is people who don't know any better run their mouths and others start to believe those lies. But this will come to bite them in the ass, because their favorite language (Python or whatever) will also be subjected to that in time. Anyway, Perl isn't dead any more dead than C. That one also gets a bad rap because of its string handling and buffer overflows, but it's still widely used. Tools that work and are useful will remain...