We have a sizable code base in Perl. For the forseeable future, our codebase will remain in Perl. However, we're looking into adding a GUI-based dashboard utility. We are considering writing the dashboard in Python (using tkinter or wx). The problem, however, is that we would like to leverage our existing Perl codebase in the Python GUI.
So... any suggestions on how achieve this? We are considering a few options:

Write executables (in Perl) that mimic function calls; invoke those Perl executables in python as system calls.
Write Perl executables on-the-fly inside the Python dashboard, and invoke the (temporary) Perl executable.
Find some kind of Perl-to-Python converter or binding.

Any other ideas? I'd love to hear if other people have confronted this problem. Unfortunately, it's not an option to convert the codebase itself to Python at this time.
Interesting project: I would opt for loose-coupling and consider an XML-RPC or JSON based approach.
Recommendations for perl-to-python interoperation?