I generally let the soil dry out as much as possible without letting the plant wilt. My understanding is that the roots need air to be healthiest, and as others have said, will grow more vigorously searching for water. That's why you want lose, non-compacted soil (with plenty of perlite). In the wild, cannabis prefers sandy soil, that's why we use lots of perlite. It's too difficult to get the good drainage with sand - much easier to get it right with perlite.
Watering is trickier when the plant is smallest (because there's less margin for error), especially in big pots. When I initially transplant my seedling into 5gal buckets, I will not saturate water, because they will need to be rewatered before the bottom soil is anywhere near ready. I just water near the seedling. I use a combination of poking my finger in the soil, and lifting the pot checking for weight. I check my plants every day, sometimes several times.
In my experience, a regular schedule for watering is a horrible idea. There are just too many variables. For inexperienced growers, err on the 'too little' side until your thumb turns green, for both watering and fertilizing. Generally, do not let them wilt, but it may be worth it to really delay watering once as an experiment. When you think you need to water - don't. Just eyeball them for a few hours or day or two, watching for wilt. This will give you a conformation that your estimates are correct.
Perimeter watering is of no use. You want an even distribution without disturbing the top soil too much. Flood until just before water will seep out the bottom, which takes some trial and error, too. I usually put a layer of perlite or gravel on the bottom of the pot to prevent over saturation of soil at the bottom (before the roots get down there). It's not really necessary, but increases the error margin somewhat.