Never touched the stuff (C or C+). Learning Java though. I'm trying (maybe not too well) to teach Perl as Perl to the degree I understand it. At the same time, I want the students to have a grasp of general programming constructs that apply to other languages

You are right about the other points, though. Although I like being able to toss an entire file into an array, it could bog things down.

My class has used the CGI and LWP::simple modules, but not in OOP style. I'm demonstrating Tk. I'm not silly enough to think beginners will be able to leave my class and write Perl objects. Or understand them. They need to be able to at least recognize things like my $button=$mainwindow->new(); and know that there is an object being made from a module. I'll be happy if they get that far.