REBOL because its fun and easy to get started with. It also runs on many platforms and has a command line (bash style) environment.
I also like Lua because its concepts are so minimalistic, yet applicable to many situations.

tcl

My scripting needs are simple, and bash serves those needs quite well. I do dip into awk and python occaisionally but I haven't spent much concentrated effort on learning scripting in those languages.

This is a fantastic language for doing the quick little one-off tasks that seem to crop up during the day. It also has powerful, built-in analytic capabilities as well as a useful set of addons including interfaces to packages like LAPACK.

Groovy +1

I think groovy should have made the list. I'm biased because I'm comfortable with Java, but groovy is an excellent scripting tool.

Simple, flexible, powerful and fun!

the best compromise on

object oriented purism (unlike python, the basic types (int, float, string, array, mapping, multiset) are not classes to make them easier to optimize)

syntax (c syntax may not be for everyone, but it is used quite a lot, so having the same syntax in a runtime compiled (or scripting) language is nice, even though i prefer pythons indenting)

speed (pike tries to produce machinecode where possible and thus has non-portable compiled/bytecode, compared to pythons bytecode which is portable, but who needs that when it is easy to recompile code anyways?)

greetings, eMBee.

These days I mainly script REST-based processes, so I prefer to use XQuery as my scripting language of choice. The combo of XQuery, REST and XForms (XRX) is a killer.

Definitely Tcl. I use Tcl as my main scripting language. Combined with EXPECT and TK make Tcl the best choice for me to produce a modularized software testing suite.

I voted for AWK, but actually use igawk - it's advanced awk (gawk) with includes -- makes for a really clean way to write code.

I do quite a bit of data conversion/transformation work with patient data. It's great for that kind of work, although I'd never want to do CGI-BIN stuff with it.

Considering bash as an entry point to Unix, I wish to add awk and grep and so on. For some tasks of file manipulation, I use APL in its APLX avatar with multiple parallel sessions. What is a "scripting language", is it the Opposit or the complement of an "oral" or "voicing language" ?

Seems that I'm the first one to give this answer :-(

AWK is on the list but TCL is kept out? Tsk. Tsk.

My favorite scripting language is 4tH, a Forth derivate. No wonder, I wrote it myself ;-)

BASH for simple things ... Ruby when it gets complicated, or too hard to read.

If I ever want to be able to read the script again, I use Ruby.

It's never fun to come back to abunchof:
cat this | awk '{print $3}' | grep "18,000 escape characters" | ...

Also, Ruby's "magic" helps me be really, really productive and write DSLs and whatnot, making the code super yummy and easy on the eyes.

Tools like RSpec and Autotest help me quickly confirm that the script actually works and won't explode if given unexpected input, and also creates usage documentation.

PS ... why does this site's CAPTCHA have to suck so bad? I'm on attempt 4 to post this comment ... it's totally unreadable ...

Is in the family of Array Processing Languages, it runs on Linux, Win, MacOS.
One line of J can do the same work as hundreds of lines of VBScript.
It's syntax is extremely simple and regular, maybe some thinks that this syntax is so cryptic, but Perl regex isn't it?

Take a look J at www.jsoftware.com and
http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Scripts#head-458cc2df2b7015f67da15aacadabdd742b12ed57 - to see working examples of what I'm saying.

;)

First, let me comment on this. Lua is wonderful but both language and ABI break between language revisions. This is why it's only _really_ used as an embedded language.

The only relevant languages on that poll are bash and legacy awk. What matters from here on out is the runtime; parrot, tamarin, JVM, nekovm and Microsoft's patent trap. In fact the only relevant scripting language for the next 10 years is javascript; increasingly an output target for other languages (see Haxe, GWT).

TCL with Tk and/or Expect. Especially great for automating interactive CLI applications. I still use it on a regular basis (along with bash). Even the new git uses it for a GUI (git-gui). Easy to code, comprehensible for maintenance, powerful and extensible.

J is so powerful that we've created a Domain-Specific Language out of it. :)

I use J for all kinds of things. Plan to use A+ when I finish porting it to Windows. I can't easily get away with using FreeBSD (my preference over Linux) very often so I need something that works on Windows. I'm toying with trying Tcl/Tk. I used to use PERL for a lot of ad hoc things before I learned J.

I should like to see also J in this list!

If I had to:
- implement some kind of a parser - Perl
- create a dynamic website - PHP
- write a number-crunching program - C++
- write a simple install script - Bash
- write a really complex program - C++, or C++ libraries + scripting language binding
- add some fancy client-side functionality to a website - JavaScript (and I would rather drop the feature rather than use Flash or Java)

I didn't use Python, Lua, AWK or Ruby, but I think there are also some optimal uses for them. I heard that Ruby can be quite slow. I was scared away from Tcl because of the archaic look of its Tk widgets, though there probably is a GTK+ binding.

My point is that if you dictate your choice of language for a given task based on personal preference, you might simply lose time.

Tcl of course... Can't believe it is not on the list.