I've always enjoyed the fact that Perl was a solution to problems for which no good solution existed. I think that being driven by the desire to create a useful tool is what makes Mr. Wall's(1) contribution so special. Being the creation of an actual person (rather than a committee such as
tilly described), Perl has a "personality". I think the reason that most of us here take such a shine to such a quirky language is that our personality (and, therefore, coding style and thought processes) meshes well with Perl's.
(1) I have no right calling him by his first name (:
~CS
