Honestly, PHP is a decent scripting language. It's pretty fast with text processing and you can choose to play fast-and-loose or go in a more type-checked direc

Honestly, PHP is a decent scripting language. It's pretty fast with text processing and you can choose to play fast-and-loose or go in a more type-checked direction. It's basically my least favorite language for "real" programs, but I think it could find a niche for scripting in the middle of the spectrum between (ba)sh and python.