This is probably too late to make any difference and might not, for any number of reasons be feasible, but I thought I would mention it. I am a little surprised that no one else has suggested it.

Why not offer to teach your colleagues' serfs..ah, graduate students Perl? This could have several advantages. First, having someone else do the work is often attractive especially if the work is seen as distasteful. And you might point out that those same advisors would receive the immediate advantage from the Perl the graduate students learn and use. Secondly, if ordered by their advisor to learn Perl the graduate students probably couldn't say no. Thirdly, being younger, graduate students are less likely to have technophobia and be much more familiar with computers and programming. And lastly, if the graduate students do learn Perl and start to get significant research results, then it will probably occur to at least some of those professors that they are missing a significant advantage in their own research efforts.

xenchu