GMod by itself is already so much better than this. With Wiremod, it's incomparable (a radar or an automatic turret are one of the easier machines to make. With skill, you could make an AI robot or a car that converts to a boat on water.) For those who don't know, GMod is a modification for Half-Life 2 that allows you to spawn and manipulate the game's objects, and use motors, constraints, and other tools to make contraptions, vehicles, puzzles, and random fun stuff. Wiremod is an extension of GMod that gives you over 100 logical gates, sensors, and tools to make much more complex devices than can be easily done in Gmod. You could do something as simple as wiring a button to a radio transmitter and a receiver to an explosive to make a radio-controlled bomb. If you're advanced, you could use the CPU (programmable in ZASM) and text screen to make a console control panel. You really could get amazing results at any level of knowledge. With games like this, I wonder what it is that makes LittleBigPlanet so revolutionary. Everything it does has been done before and done better.

I think perl is a great learning language. It is very flexible, powerful and straightforward, and bugs are rare. For a beginner, perl would be great because you can learn the basics and advance to more advanced features later on without having to work with things like classes, functions and typecasting when you're still getting started.