best scripting language to learn?

[-Matt-]

Knowing PHP is extremely useful. Most good open source scripts I use are written in PHP, so it's nice being able to make changes without much hassle.

I've played with and liked Perl and Ruby as well.

Great book:
Webbots, Spiders, And Screen Scrapers: A Guide to Developing Internet Agents With Php/ Curl - Michael Schrenk - Paperback (ISBN 9781593271206) - Buy Books, Music and Movies at Borders

Very simple free PHP tutorials:
PHP Tutorial - Introduction

 

[Pedobear]

As far as scripting languages go. Perl > *

not sure why people are all over PHP here...if you're writing a web application, use PHP. If you're writing any other type of "script" (for automation, or whatever) use Perl.

Although PERL may be better suited for scripting, so far what I've read on php makes it seem like a pretty good multi-use language. Maybe if I start out with php, I can learn a better language for whatever I end up spending most my time on? Meaning if I find scripting more useful than web applications, I can switch, but php seems like I can get more "everyday" use out of it. Maybe I'm just greedy, but this thread makes me want to learn em' all.

 

[pileofcrap]

Ruby on Rails seemed to be getting big for a while. I've noticed a decline lately, however.

 

[nkuttler]

PHP is, well, the standard. Runs everywhere. Can do everything you need for websites. But it's a very ugly language and full of inconsistencies. That said, I use it all the time for website stuff.

I love perl to extract and parse data. This language was built to do such things. Ruby isn't mature enough for my taste. And python, well, that's something I'll look into one day I guess.

And don't forget to learn about the standard UNIX/GNU tools and some shell. There are things you can do in a few seconds on the command line that would require some rather serious coding in any scripting language.