the best type of perl code is "dumb code", or code that is very straightforward and almost spells out what you're doing. I was wondering, dumb code is good for Java, but what is the best type of perl code?

I believe there are a number of fundamentally "good" programming practices that should be followed in both Perl and Java, indeed in most modern programming languages. I wrote these down in On Coding Standards and Code Reviews. The nearest one to your "dumb code" meme is item 4 in the "General Guidelines" section:

Correctness, simplicity and clarity come first. Avoid unnecessary cleverness.

While I agree your code is easy to follow, it could be improved in terms of testability, abstraction, encapsulation, and DRY. That is, while this style of coding is fine for short, throw away scripts, it does not scale well to larger systems, which are better designed as a set of loosely coupled, highly cohesive modules, each testable in isolation.