Like snafu, I have mixed feelings on this. My reasoning is a bit different, and I tend to agree with cjf. I realise C is sometimes a difficult language to get started with, syntactically, however it is also a very structured language.

The flexibility of perl is nothing like I have seen before. Just the simple omission of rigid data-types makes it much easier to work with. (At least I think so)I also think that this same flexibility could become a problem if you START learning with perl.

Plus, look how much more you appreciated that flexibility after working with such a rigid structure. :)