What about REBOL (www.rebol.com)

[Joe Marshall]

Tim Peters <tim_one at email.msn.com> wrote in message
news:000e01bf66cb$670a8480$a42d153f at tim...
> [posted & mailed]
>
> [Tim]
> > ... (despite that it *looks* nothing like Lisp, a REBOL
> > "block" is a lexical closure, and the semantics are
> > virtually identical to Scheme's)
>
> [Joe Marshall]
> > REBOL abandoned lexical closures in version 2.0, so the
> > semantics have become quite different from Scheme's.
>
> I eagerly yield to Joe on all matters REBOL -- he was the primary
> implementer of the version I used most.  So, Joe, should the original
> questioner learn Python or REBOL?

Python, of course!

(Who in their right mind would advocate language `X' in comp.lang.`Y'?)

But seriously, it would depend a lot on what the original poster wanted
to accomplish.  He said he was interested in learning a `multi-platform
script language'.  Most likely he wants to improve his marketable skills.
I'd say Perl, TCL, and Python provide the greatest opportunity for that.
REBOL is too immature a language, is missing necessary connectivity
(the core product does not support 3rd party dynamic libraries, foreign
functions, COM or CORBA, or even the ability to spawn subprocesses
and capture their output), and has a miniscule user base compared to
the others.

So  I think Python is his best bet.  Unless, of course, he finds that
Perl appeals to his sense of aesthetics.....

~jrm