I don't think it's necessarily generational. Perl and Python differ in a key regard: Perl went all in on TIMTOWTDI, whereas Python went in the complete opposite direction: enforced whitespace, minimal syntax, strong use of conventions and idioms. (When was the last time you heard somebody inquiring about the Perl-ic way to write something?) As a result, a lot of Perl code is an unreadable mess, and many Python programs are intelligible even to non-programmers. It's hard to overstate what a win this is for Python.