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

[jimbus]

And well, I realize this is a 'big thing', but I'd miss PerlMonks!

I'd been running down the Java trail and just got frustrated with the lack of real knowledge and community out there... sure there's a a million and six forums out there, but nothing that would tackle difficult questions or offer moral support.

I was also tired of doing file schelping in a shell and reporting in Java... with Perl I got the power and flexibility to do both... so there's another thing I'd miss.

[stonecolddevin]

I agree completely with jimbus. I once was a young lad trying to configure perl scripts for Mechwarrior 3 clan websites, and could have gone any way with the CGI path. PHP was very enticing, it was easy to set up, and get a fairly cool looking application going. Not to mention almost EVERY message board i'd see was written in it.

Perlmonks and the perl community are on a completely different level than anything I've seen in the computer world before. Not that my experience holds a candle to 90% of perlmonks' users, but the experience I've had with Java, PHP, and other web technologies hasn't been in anyway so endearing as perlmonks. Perlmonks has not only increased my aptitude as far as perl, computers, and internet technology goes, but my aptitude in school and in real life. Every time I come into the CB, I know there is a warm welcome waiting for me. I know there are people that care about me, that know a lot more about me than a lot of people I'm around every day. I can go to perlmonks with anything. If I'm having a bad day and people in Real Life are just pissing me off, I can vent to some of the best friends I have by simply logging on to a web site.

Anyway, I don't mean to preach, or get off topic. Or sound creepy for having good friends I've never met in person before :-) I just want to note that there's not really any one feature of perl I appreciate more than the other. And attached to the hip of perl, is the community, which, I can't say there's any one part I like over the other :-)