Often I'll be in Max, creating a script for something, and I'll say to myself `in Maya I'd do it this way', and vice versa for Maya. If you work with one or the other too long, the syntax and solutions to various tasks become very much of that application. When you go back to the other application there is a moment of puzzlement, you know how to do something, but your mind needs a kick, a quick refresh to get it going.

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Scripting languages for 3D applications extend the applications with great ease and speed. They can save huge amounts of time with a programmer or technical artist on hand who can write scripts and tools with these languages. They can also solve many problems that would traditionally require a tools programmers to write a plugin.

Plugins often require a lot longer to develop, and can be a nuisance for a programmer to have to take the time out to write. A script can be written by a technically competant artist, or a technical artist (for the more complicated tasks), artists which are very close to the problem that requires solving. For tasks that require brute force and massive computation, a plugin will be faster at doing this task. But for 90% of other tasks, scripting can be used very successfully. If pushed, it's possible to create custom scene importers and exporters with only the scripting languages.

MaxScript's syntax is basic from a programmer's point of view. MEL's syntax is more related to other programming languages that programmers use frequently, such as C++ and Java.

I personally have a preference for MEL because it's easier to read the code. I find MaxScript can be a little too basic in presentation sometimes. Also MEL uses programming standards, such as code commenting syntax, where as Max uses a different syntax for putting comments in your code which can be quite annoying sometimes!

You'll find the biggest challenges lay in the accessing of the available functions of the applications. Maya is more transparent and flexible in giving you the ability to access pre-defined functions. Max can be quite a challenge! When using in built functionality in your scripts, it can force UIs to pop up on you which are not possible to suppress. This can be frustrating, often requiring a rewrite of the built in function which has already been written for Max. Extending has the same issue, and it's often better to write something from scratch than extend what is already there due to bugs or inflexibility. I once had to re-write practically the whole XRefing system in Max for this reason.

Contrary to many tutorials that suggest you build primatives and transform them with script as a start point. I believe selecting objects in your scene, and using object selections is the first real world task you'll need to figure out how to do. Max and Maya handle objects in your scene differently. Selecting objects, or types of objects sometimes isn't as trivial as you'd imagine.

Selection of objects, and aquiring user selections of objects are essential in most scripts. The basic selection of a node/object by name in Max and Maya are quite similar. Max uses the dollar symbol (`$`) as a shorthand version of selection. For example you can enter `$` in the MaxScript command line and a list of your current selection will be returned.
In Maya, the dollar symbol (`$`) means `a variable`. The dollar sign is used to tell MEL you are using a variable.