Home > Scripting programming language

designed for " scripting" the operation of a computer. Early script languages were often called batch languages or job control languages.

1 Description

Many scripting languages emerged as tools for executing one-off tasks, particularly in system administration. One way of looking at scripts is as "glue" that puts several components together; thus they are widely used for creating graphical user interfaces. Scripts are typically stored only in their plain text form (as ASCII) and interpreted, or (as with Perl) compiled each time they are invoked.

Some scripting languages are designed for a specific domain, but often it is possible to write more general programs in that language. In many large-scale projects, a scripting language and a lower level programming language are used together, each lending its particular strengths to solve specific problems. Scripting languages are often designed for interactive use, having many commands that can execute individually, and often have very high level operations (for example, in the classic UNIX shell (sh), most operations are programs themselves).

Such high level commands simplify the process of writing code. Programming features such as automatic memory management and bounds checking can be taken for granted. In a 'lower level' or nonscripting language, managing memory and variables and creating data structures tends to consume more programmer effort and lines of code to complete a given task. In some situations this is well worth it for the resulting fine-grained control. The scripter typically has less flexibility to optimize a program for speed or to conserve memory. ¹

For the reasons noted above, it is usually faster to program in a scripting language, and script files are typically much smaller than, say, equivalent C program files. The flip side can be a performance penalty: scripting languages, often interpreted, may be significantly slower to execute and may consume more memory when running. In many relevant cases, however, e.g. with small scripts of some tens of lines, the write-time advantage far outweighs the run-time disadvantage. Also, this argument gets stronger with rising programmer salaries and falling hardware costs.

2 Notes

1. However, the boundary between scripting languages and regular programming languages tends to be vague, and is blurring ever more with the emergence of new languages and integrations in this fast-changing area. In some scripting languages, an experienced programmer can accomplish a good deal of optimization if they choose. And in general, it is possible to write a script in any language (including C or assembly language). In most modern systems, the latter case is very seldom recommendable, since one or more suitable script languages is usually available.

3 List of scripting programming languages

• ACS
• ActionScriptActionScript is an ECMAScript-based programming language used for controlling Macromedia Flash movies and applications. Since both ActionScript and JavaScript are based on the same ECMAScript syntax, fluency in one easily translates to the other. However,
• Active Server PagesActive Server Pages ASP is Microsoft's server-side technology for dynamically-generated web pages that is marketed as an adjunct to Internet Information Server (IIS). ASP has gone through four major iterations, ASP 1. 0 (distributed with IIS 3. 0 (distrib (ASP)
• AppleScriptAppleScript is a scripting language devised by Apple Computer, and built into Mac OS. More generally, AppleScript is the word used to designate the Mac OS scripting interface, which is meant to operate in parallel with the graphical user interface. Histor
• Awk
• BeanShell (scripting for Java)
• bash
• Brain
• CobolScript
• cshThe C shell csh is a Unix shell developed by Bill Joy for the BSD Unix system. It was originally derived from the 6th Edition Unix /bin/sh, the predecessor of the Bourne shell. Its syntax is modeled after the C programming language. The C shell added many
• ColdFusionThis article is about the computer programming language. For the nuclear reaction, see Cold fusion. In computing, ColdFusion is a tag-based, middleware programming language used chiefly for writing web-based applications. The language was created by JJ Al
• DylanDylan is a dynamic programming language created by a group led by Apple Computer. It was originally intended for use with Apple's Newton computer, but their implementation did not reach sufficient maturity in time, and they instead developed NewtonScript
• E
• Escapade (server side scripting)
• Euphoria
• GameMonkeyScript
• Groovy
• Guile
• Haskell
• HyperTalk
• ICI
• IRC script
• JavaScript (ECMAScript)
• JCL
• Jython
• ksh
• Lua
• Lingo
• LoadRunner
• mIRC script
• Miva
• MS-DOS batch
• MUMPS
• NWscript
• ObjectRexx
• Perl
• PHP
• Pike
• Pliant
• Python
• QuakeC
• REBOL
• REXX
• Ruby
• Scheme
• ScriptBasic
• sh
• Shorthand Language
• Simkin
• Tcl (Tool command language)
• UnrealScript
• UserTalk
• VBScript
• Visual DialogScript
• ZZT-oop