Re^2: If I was forced to program in another language, the Perl language feature I would miss most would be:

[ank]

Definitely the ease to create and modify data structures using hashes, lists, etc - especially using [], {} and such.
What, Java? Use XML? No, not for this task, thank you! And go back to sit in your corner, please.
What, C++? Roll my own solution? Are you nuts? Go back to playing with your toys - STL and Boost are missing you.