My 2 cents:
I AM a newbie (just ask David), and I think Perl is still the way
to go. I have picked up books on Python (O'Reilly), and still found
myself turning to Perl because I found it easier to understand.

The selection of modules at CPAN is enormous (sp?), and there is a good
chance you will find one for the task you need to do (er um, I'm still
havin' a tough time finding something for SQL7). In fact, I had a need to
be able to generate graphs from MySQL queries, and  whatta ya know, CPAN
had the modules I needed (although I had a dickens of a time getting
GDGraph to go).

My advice, play with them all. Find the one that makes most sense to YOU.
Then take the ball and run :-)

Mike
mgcon@getnet.com
http://www.getnet.com/~mgcon
Phoenix, AZ
USA