Later, a student should be taught when those practices are unwarranted. But, those situations are very rare and usually involve very advanced topics. In that situation, Perl makes an excellent second language. One cannot appreciate the flexibility Perl offers without having had to do it the "hard way" first.

This is how I learned programming. 10 years later, I still appreciate Perl for what it does for me, and try to do the same with what I develop.

Personally, I guess perl is not a language for the begginners. Perl shouldn't be the first language, because there is little restrictions on datatypes and syntax constructions. This generally speaking leads the newcomers to become less disciplined and write bad code. This is a bad thing. On the other hand, perl is fast to learn and powerful. Much more powerful than the needs you have at academia. This is both an advantage and a disvantage, for the same reason you don't teach basic math operations to children using a scientific calculator - they will not learn how to think, just how to press buttons and read the answers.