Originally Posted By: Björn
I must say that Perl isn't that complex (erhm.. yet ). Just picked up a book about it ;\)


You're kidding, right? I've coded in most interpreted / compiled languages available for *nix, and I have to say that PERL takes a perverse pleasure in being difficult to learn. Reading someone elses PERL script is enough to drive you crazy

As a good cross-platform, well featured easy to learn language I'd point people at PHP. I use it for all my more complex scripting now, so that I can easily port it between Windows and Linux. Although it started off as a CGI language it is just as powerfull as a stand alone language, either interpreted or compiled. As an example of a non-Web application I use PHP in a bespoke package I wrote to monitor all our routers - auditing config changes, monitoring circuit status, bandwidth use, latency and so on.