If you were starting learning a new language today, for scripting and doing "various stuff" with it (from making useful programs to it being glue to several command line programs), would you go with Python or Perl (or some third option, although the battle usually comes to these two)?

I've never much used dynamic languages at all, having been able to do everything I needed in traditional static ones. Did some scripting in Perl a couple of years ago, but that was more of a momentary fling, than an attempt to learn it well.

Now I've some free time, and have decided to go along with one of these two, and play a little with them.

I like Perl's syntax, but Python does seem to be taking rather big steps on overtaking that area. What do you think, which one is more worth learning and why? Also, what do you think, what will be Python's future in about 10 years ... will it overtake Perl and other scripting languages's as a dominant tool for that kind of work (I more often than not find it being implemented in various applications I'm using - for internal scripting and automating loading of data and similar operations), or will it find a balance and coexist along others (Perl)? What is its current "momentum" - does it comes by default with Linux distributions, as Perl does, or does it needs to be installed separately every time? Is it a language which can be expected "to just be there"?