"Perl gives you enough rope to you .." cit. Larry Wall. It is cause Perl is very expressive. I usually write code even my boss can read, and looks trivial remember Perl is inspired on natural languuages. On the other hand you can write very cryptic code, in every language, but Perl can be very tricky: use comments for the future you.
Learning Perl was a great excercise, after that I could learn JavaScript really easy not only cause they are so similar but cause Perl and its culture teaches you about programming. It is a milestone.
I will say that I started using Perl5 recently (big python fan). I expected everything to be crusty and bad. CPAN worked great, and the doc...my GOSH the doc is sooo good. It is everywhere. In my command-line, gazzillions of websites. I forgot what it was like to not be dependent on StackOverflow.
Perl Monks is far better than Stack Overflow for Perl questions, as they actively encourage the discussion that Stack Overflow avoids, leading to a greater understanding afterwards as opposed to just something that works.
I can't count the # of times a super helpful question was closed on StackOverflow for being "off topic" or being likely to cause a flame war. I do like Perl Monks, but wish the format was a little different UI wise. Def still usable though.
Learning Perl was a great excercise, after that I could learn JavaScript really easy not only cause they are so similar but cause Perl and its culture teaches you about programming. It is a milestone.