Lars Marius Garshol very nicely sums up what's wrong with Perl:

"One of the first things I discovered I didn't like was the syntax. It's very complex and there are lots of operators and special syntaxes. This means that you get short, but complex code with many syntax errors that take some time to sort out.

It also means that reading someone elses code is difficult. You can't easily understand someone elses scripts and adapt them to your own needs, nor can you easily take over the maintenance of someone elses program."