I can't comment on Perl but Python I think would be the best if you want a simple language for controlling hardware.No doubt that each languages has their strengths and it depends what you want from a language.
Python is more an object based scripting language which is excellent for complex data structures. I would say it is significantly more difficult to master than Perl.
I can't able to say which is best but perl is user friendly..! Comparing to python perl is easy to understand and easy to debug the error in quick time...! so i suggest perl is good for scripting beginners..!