If your lang is PHP, and you're just getting started with ES and want
to test some of its features using the CURLs that are shown on the
website (typically in json), here's a VERY simple PHP curl script to
help you get started.
https://gist.github.com/1973574
Note that there are some pretty slick PHP clients out there (see
http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/appendix/clients.html) that I
highly recommend, but this short script may reduce your learning curve
a bit if you're just doing some initial exploration.
If the experts in the ES group have any suggestions on this script,
feel free to pass them along.
Cheers!