When I first started learning to drive, my Dad insisted that I learn to drive a vehicle with a standard transmission first before learning to drive an automatic. The reason is that once you get the standard down, the automatic is easy to learn. When you try it in the other way, its like having to learn things twice. Not only that, learning to drive on a standard teaches you more about how your car works.

I think Perl is the automatic car. It is a great language, very fast and convenient to use and also well supported. But, if its all you know, it becomes hard later on when you have to start looking under the hood.

I originally moved in the opposite direction as you. I started with c++ and then moved into Perl. I can say that having the c++ background not only made the migration to Perl very easy, but it has also helped me countless times where I have been forced to "look under the hood" and find out the exact way that perl does something (here, for example).

So, do I think people should avoid perl until they've seen something like c? Ehh, that might be a bit overboard. But I would say that perl is not the best primary language for a CS undergrad.

Go forth and learn ye some C, then when you return, a greater perl monk you shall be. :)