Perl 5.16 and Relevance

Perl is for all manner of internal plumbing for your site.

Use it to generate reports, to auto-configure your application when you reinstall it. Use it to fill in the missing bits of functionality when you smash together a bunch of existing programs.

Perl is duct tape for the system administrator. You wouldn't want to code up a word processor or a database in it, but it sure does come in handy. Even if your app is written in something else, Perl can be the fastest and most expedient way to add that missing functionality that pulls the whole room together.