Many people learn Python specifically just for hacking and when I first started with Python and moving from Java to Python personally felt a lot comfortable. When I needed to write a script which was not available on the internet I had to choose between Perl and Python. Because Perl is another very popular open source interpreted programming language. When you google you will know that Python is a more popular programming language in hacking world. When compared to Perl, the Python programs are definitely clearer, simpler, easier to write and hence more maintainable and understandable.
If you are someone interested in tinkering with the information security tasks, Python is a great language to learn because of the availability of the large number of reverse engineering and exploitation libraries for your use.
