The 4th edition authors included brian d foy, who said "I think Tom [Christiansen] and I worked for about two years to produce the current edition. I certainly wouldn't want to spend that much time again to make less than $1,000... It's a huge effort from the editors and proofreaders and the book won't sell enough to make back the effort they put into it." https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/1ns5r9n/comment/ngmvt...

I wasn't aware of this.

The first edition came out in 1991. The 4th ed came out in 2012, by which time Perl was no longer the duct tape of the internet. Perl 6 had muddied the waters, and Ruby and Rails had peaked.

Still, 1000 is painfully low, esp. for a high quality product.

Yes, you're right. That is the comment I was referring to.