...that person ... thinks style is just as important as functionality.

I think it is, if you have to maintain code. Certainly working code is important. If it's truly a one-off and you never have to maintain it, style isn't as important as completeness and correctness.

I think it's a bad habit to write unstylish code even for one-offs, though. I've maintained too many programs that managed to stick around far longer than anyone expected. I've also seen too many buggy sections of code written poorly because someone rushed to make a fix. If you don't have the discipline to write code well even when you're experimenting, do you have the discipline to write code well when you're under pressure?

Even worse, the respondent has forgotten that TMTOWTDI.

That's a silly argument. It's stupid to pound nails in with a rock (or your forehead) when there's a perfectly serviceable hammer right next to you.

You don't have to take style advice, but it's free and it comes from a community that has, as a whole, orders of magniture more experience designing, developing, and maintaining programs than any one poster. I think failing to consider that advice, because Perl allows you to solve problems in many ways, is a mistake.