I think that is the best solution, also for using ssl.People already suggested to use C and you said
Perhaps to first practice with tcl as in my link above, just to learn some http, and then do it in C. Perhaps for learning http the following is enough for him:
HTTP Made Really Easy
Tutorial: Quickly learn how to use HTTP in your network applications, if you know basic sockets programming. Covers HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1. Includes sample clients in Perl.
www.jmarshall.com
Well, also with tcl are ssl connections possible: