2/23   I need to come up with some sort of scriptable solution for controlling
       various hardware-- we already have an interface that accepts
       string-based commands over a socket, but no way to control it via script
       (e.g. with variables, if/then/else/while, error recover/reporting).
       Would perl be good for this sort of thing, or are there simpler, more
       focused languages/modules available?
        \_ I'm not exactly sure what your situtation is, but FORTH is often
           used as a language to control hardware. It's small, effecient
           and easy to write interpreters for (there are quite a few
           embeddable forth interpreters out there).
        \_ Python 1.5 runs on vxWorks, if you are running that OS.
        \_ Expect.
        \_ perl is good to know in any case.