I didn't even think about asking this question until now, based on a 
paragraph I wrote in another thread, so I thought I would ask...

I've had this long time infatuation with Ruby and as a fairly proficient 
Perl coder, have even recreated a few "Ruby things" in Perl over the 
last few years.  But a couple of "Wow!" factors in Ruby have kept me 
hanging around and I've finally decided that the only way is to ween 
myself off of Perl and just start using Ruby all the way.

This is hard because I can't afford a lot of downtime, which has been 
the biggest strike for me against using Ruby.  I'm fairly fast, tight, 
and concise at hitting targets using Perl and I don't want to loose that 
productivity using Ruby.  Still, it appears a "hit" has to be taken if I 
really want to learn it as well as I know Perl.

So the question for any hardcore Perl coders out there that have 
converted to Perl (or are fluent in both) is: Is it really worth the 
time?  Are the paybacks there?  And do you feel you've exceeded your 
capabilities in Perl using Ruby?

I perceive, from what I've read, that this could be the case.  I see all 
these "testimonials" that claim rapid development and this is inticing, 
yet at the same time, having done *some* Ruby coding, this is a little 
hard for me to believe because in my estimation, the paradigm in Ruby is 
entirely different than in just about any other procedural language and 
even from the OO aspects of Perl, C++ and Java.  To me, the difference 
between Ruby and just about anything else (common) is the same as when, 
in the development world, many of us made the leap from procedural to 
OO.  I think the gap between Ruby and most everything else is that big 
-- as well as the payoffs...?

So I'm looking for feedback from those that have converted, esp. from a 
hardcore Perl perspective.

Thanks,
-ceo