all you need is notepad,but a really cool notepad replacement is editplus It has syntax highlighting for perl built in, regex-enabled searching, tabbed file windows, and lots more. another more powerful (but not so simple to use) editor is vim there are dozens of other great editors for windows, notepad is not one of them. I know the first thing I download on a new pc (after Perl) is a "real" text editor.

I recommend getting a good book on perl. Assuming you have a basic understanding of programming, the other languages you list suggest this, try Learning Perl it is an excellent intro to Perl.