We promote, but do not require, Python as a scripting language over Perl because in our opinion it is a cleaner language. A nice alternative to Python is Ruby.
The Python implementation is portable: it runs on many brands of UNIX, on Windows, OS/2, Mac, Amiga, and many other platforms. If your favorite system isn’t listed here, it may still be supported, if there’s a C compiler for it. Ask around on news:comp.lang.python – or just try compiling Python yourself.