The Pathetically Eclectic Rubbish Lister is a
quirky and downright
bizarre language originally
designed by
Larry Wall.
Known as the Swiss Army Chainsaw, Perl has grown into a leviathan like entity, having grown new tentacles for OO, complex data structures and real scoping.
Perl's design sacrifices abstraction for flexibility. This makes the language a veritable powerhouse for the seasoned guru, but a patch of deadly quicksand for the unwary newbie.
One of Perl's mottos is 'TAMTOWTDI' There's Always More Than One Way To Do It. This can be both a good and a bad thing.
Another good option for newbies needing to write a script is Python, which brings a greater level of abstraction to the table, making the 99% of what people want to do much simpler while making the 1% of tasks the gurus need to do slightly more verbose.
Recently I've become very enamoured with Ruby. It brings all the benefits I outlined above while describing Python to the table without sacrificing the conciseness that Perl geeks seem to crave while maintaining a very high level of readability.