For automation tasks, including web scraping, all of Python, Ruby, and Perl would be suitable. For Google appengine, you should use Python (as that is actually the first languge that was supported on that platform).

I recommend that you define yourself a specific project, and then ask here what specific libraries people would use, and try two out of three languages, to see which one you like more.

Try them all (do the tutorials) and use the one you like.

I'm biased, but I'd say Python: in my Python for Programmers talk, I point out the similarities with C, C++, AND Java that will help you get onboard. It's also currently the most popular "scripting" (hating that monicker is a different issue) language on Tiobe (below PHP, but that's not "general purpose"... above Perl, Javascript and Ruby anyway;-), for what THAT is worth;-).

I'll say Perl, because it has syntax most like C.

• Python creates blocks by colons and indentation (not very C-like).
• Ruby takes its queue from Python, but adds in some word-delimited blocks (kinda like Pascal)--although it just as often uses curly angle blocks as well.

Of course, this might also be the reason you don't want to learn Perl, because you want a totally different type of syntax. But Perl has the following similarities.

• All blocks are delimited with { ... }.
• Statements are separated with ; (Ruby uses ':')
• C logic operators ==, !=, ...
• C ternary operator:
    my $result = $test ? $true_value : $false_value
• OO Perl uses -> for method dispatch:
    $my_object->do_method()
• Classes are named This::That::TheOther and methods This::That:do_that
• Printf format specifiers (as well as plain old printf)
    printf "Your string is=\"%s\"\n", $your_string

Given that you are already familiar with Java, I would suggest learning Groovy first. Groovy is a dynamic language (the less pejorative term for scripting language) that targets the JVM. Because it targets the JVM, you have complete access to call of Java classes you are familiar with, but without the pain you associate with Java. This should smooth the learning curve a little.

Once you are feeling comfortable with Groovy, I would suggest Scala. Scala also targets the JVM. It will likely break your brain, as it is a functional language and up to this point you have only used imperative languages. Note, breaking your brain is a good thing. When you put the pieces back together you wind up with a better brain.

It all depends on what you want to accomplish.

For simple (or advanced!) day-to-day sysadmining/automation etc. I use bash.

For application development, I'm very partial to ruby (and ruby on rails for web-applications). But wouldn't mind python either. My view on perl is that it tends to be a write-once-hopefully-never-touch-again language. Don't get me wrong, it really is a nice language, but I find that it is way to easy to produce unreadable code in perl.

A different allround, nice language is lua. It is ridiculously simple to embed in C/C++ applications. It has a lot of nice libraries and is still very light-weight. I've used lua as the logic layer in a distributed C++/java-based 3D application (yes, 3 languages in a single product!?), and my xmpp-server of choice is currently prosody which is lua all the way.

Both ruby and lua (and presumably python and perl) behave nicely on windows as well as linux/unix. Bash is most definitively more at home in the linux/unix-world.

You may try playing with ruby, python, they are both great languages and very close to each other. Perl is just another thing. If your coming from a C background you won't be spending too much time understanding its syntax and once you map the similitudes between the two language you'll find yourself doing C almost all the time.

In addition, Perl community, packages, resources, .... is just immense !

Remeber that the main goal behind Perl creation, is to achieve a lot while writing less.

Since you go to RIT, you might be interested in the fact that the computer science department is switching Computer Science I and II from Java to Python and Computer Science IV from C++ to C. This means that there are going to be more Python resources on campus - more people are going to have some knowledge in it, meaning it will be easier for you to get face-to-face help if you need it.

In reality, all of the different scripting languages have some things in common, and some things that they excel at. I'm learning Python now - it's not that bad, coming from a mostly Java background. Ruby was my first scripting language, and I liked how I could make things happen quickly with it (and with Rails, for web-based development).

The best advice I have is to look at the major scripting languages and see which one you like the best. It shouldn't be that hard to take what you learn in one and quickly pick up another. And as you learn more languages, it will be easier to pick up other languages.

Groovy - right at home coming from Java, Ruby sounds line fun - would be easy to deal with performance critical code needed to be written in C

PYTHON...or may be Groovy...?