> I didn't write this rant.

You bothered to link to it.

> side note about rewarding idiotic behaviour

The raw and naked idea is not entirely incorrect. Literally everything else in the sentences making up that section is.

> Erik Naggum used Perl for a fair amount of time

> Did you even bother reading it?

Did you? I quote from the screed:

    I once studied perl enough to read perl code and spot bugs in other
    people's programs [...], but I don't write in it and I don't ever
    plan to use it for anything

I don't know about you, but i find that unambiguous.