[I like pie]

A few years ago, I got my programming career started by playing with basic mIRC scripts. Now that I'm older, and a good deal better at scripting, I want to take another crack at the initial games I made. But I want to use a real scripting language.

I really don't have any idea where to start. My path went the way of web dev stuff, so I really just know php and a tiny bit of perl. I have no clue how to go about writing an irc bot from scratch.

I don't know what exactly I need to do to start, or even what language I should look into learning. I've heard alot about tcl for irc stuff, but I can't seem to find much other than extensions for eggdrop. I don't want an eggdrop bot either, it has all sorts of functionality that I have no need for. I just want to go about writing a bare-bones program that can connect to a server and respond to input, and give simple output.

Unfortunately, any valuable resources that would help me seem to be buried under masses of search results for mIRC scripting and eggdrop help forums.

I'm just gonna say it. I need a bit of hand-holding, I'm completely lost. Help please. :-o