To Perl, Python Or Tcl?

• Many more serious scripting languages exist for Linux. The 3 above-mentioned languages are most commonly used.
  
  
• Python has the most elegant design of the 3. However, being newer, it also has less 3rd-party libraries and scripts available for reuse. Learning Python would take just a few hours before you become productive.
  
  
• Perl is the most commonly used language, with the ugliest syntax of the 3. It has many available modules on CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) which are very easy to download and install (Perl 5 has command line options for this). Perl is also easy to learn if you know C, and are familiar with shell programming, awk/sed/grep and similar Unix tools. You might try reading Picking Up Perl, an on-line perl book.
  
  
• Tcl won its grounds mostly due to its Tk extension, which makes it very easy to write GUI programs. However, now that Perl and Python allow that too (and Java exists as well), Tcl lost some of its advantages.