for the new programmer, is Perl the way to go?

Doing Perl and Ruby myself (sadly nearly no Python so far), I think both will be around us for the next few years to come. Perl definitely (because there is a large, lively user base), and Ruby likely too. In the end, you should be familiar in the end with several languages anyway, so the question is since you ask specifically about new programmers -, what language to begin with.

I personally would recommend as the first programming language not necessarily one which is most widely used, but one which is easy to learn and does not has too many oddities. In this respect, I would say that Ruby is a bit better suited than Perl, but one might argue that languages like Scheme, Lua or NIAL would be even better. But I think this is subject we can discuss endlessly, and everyone will throw in his or her favorite beginner's language and have good reason for using it....