I think you got the wrong takeaway here. It's not about Logo and Perl specifically, it's about making sure that whatever you do, it's enjoyable for the kids. For some that's math, for others it's graphics, for others it's "hacking". Whatever works for one, isn't guaranteed to work for the others.
Just as for some, Perl is pleasure, for others, Perl is pain.
And I didn't do anything like "teaching them perl". In fact, I think I may have actually used bash; and if I were doing it today I'd probably use python. The point was to have something that you could reasonably guess what it was doing from looking at it. You don't have to know anything about perl replace "A" with "E" and vice versa.
And although I wouldn't call this exercise "fun", it's something that connects with a part of their life they understand. Nobody would actually write a script like this, but someone could totally write a function like this as part of a larger program, and have exactly the kind of "bug" that was displayed there; or, could be hacked in exactly the same way.
Kids are sharp enough to know when a skill is going to be useful, even if it's not "fun".
> Kids are sharp enough to know when a skill is going to be useful, even if it's not "fun".
Kids are also a lot less dependent on fun than people think. If they actually feel useful you'd be surprised what they're interested in doing that's not considered fun.
Just as for some, Perl is pleasure, for others, Perl is pain.