> *having to maintain decade-old Perl written in a variety of different styl...

> having to maintain decade-old Perl written in a variety of different styles was maddening.

Interesting... I wonder how many languages can still run a decade old program?

This shows both the strength and weakness of Perl in that...

i) It has excellent backward compatibility

ii) So no one is forced to improve or update the program (over time) :(