python has basically become my weapon of choice lately. here are a few python libraries that i've found useful and a few i haven't used but look useful.
urllib2
urlib2 is a python module for fetching urls. supports simple GETs and POSTing to forms. a nice howto:
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/articles/urllib2.shtmlmechanize
easy to fill and submit forms without using regex. maintains client state with cookies automatically. kinda like using a browser. based on the perl module of the same name.
http://wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/mechanize/Universal Feed Parser
haven't used this one yet but probably will soon. parses feed like the name says. i like that it doesn't involve DOM traversal.
http://feedparser.org/PyRSS2Gen
for creating rss programatically. again, no DOMs. haven't tried it yet either.
http://www.dalkescientific.com/Python/PyRSS2Gen.htmlBeautiful Soup
parses html/xml. useful for scraping because it handles broken html.
http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/pycurl
for the curl people
http://pycurl.sourceforge.net/
