Computing at Hasylab: Perl/PerlTk is the new scripting language for   Spectra
  At the Hamburger Synchrotronstrahlungslabor Hasylab most experiments are controlled by the online program Spectra, which runs on Linux PCs. Spectra has been converted into a Perl module, allowing online programmers to write their code in Perl. They can take advantage of complex data structures, flow control, subroutines, OO features, the network interface, etc. In addition, Perl offers other features that are well suited to make the online functionality of Spectra (monochromator and diffractometer routines, etc.) available to the programmer. 
Th. Kracht