Since you are familiar with xml, I wouldn't just go jumping into the latest distros.. because of the complexity of the scripts, unless you have some background in oop.
Use the server
@LordVissie suggested, believe it or not some of us still do write scripts for the older distros and it will help you get familar with the structure of the server, plus the tools to compile are not as complicated to get working or heavy on system resources as the latest version of tfs.
Even the websites, tools, map editors etc will work with previous versions of tfs.
