they hate to hear about its slow death
That is fine, we are in no hurry!
Jokes aside, we have been hearing this "Perl is dying" song now for so long --always from people totally ignorant of the matter at hand-- that even they should start to think that perhaps there is no truth in their predictions?
CountZero
A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James