It's no longer between Python and Perl, it's Ruby now . Perl still has it's place. Personally, i use it everyday, what surprised me more was Delphi. i only know skype company wise that uses it so i dunno.
By the same metrics, assuming you've defined any, a lot of things wouldn't exist - particularly languages less popular than Ruby now, such as Logo, ActionScript, Lisp, COBOL, Scala or Haskell.
There are tens of thousands of Ruby developers and hundreds (if not thousands) of companies making significant amounts of money, all backed by Ruby.
