An overview of scripting languages

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An overview of scripting languages

• Alexander Kanavin
• Teachers Barbara Miraftabi, Jan Voracek

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What are scripting languages?

• Interpreted, never compiled
• Automatic memory handling
• High-level data types lists, associative arrays
• Can access modules written in lower-level
  languages (C, C)
• Most important allow to treat code as data and
  vice versa

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Application areas

• Command scripting languages
• Application scripting languages
• Markup languages
• Universal scripting languages

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Command scripting

• Control execution of programs and tasks
• Shell language is the prime example

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Application scripting languages

• End-user application programming
• Visual Basic for Applications
• Emphasis on user interface and components
  embedding
• JavaScript

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Markup languages

• Tags in text give instructions to the markup
  language processor
• TeX
• HTML
• XML

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Universal scripting languages

• Perl
• Python
• Tcl
• Second wave web services (PHP)

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Why are they important?

• C and C do not manage memory
• Allow to glue components together
• Allow fast prototyping (no compilation)
• Reduce complexity by allowing the use of the most
  appropriate tools for each subtask
• Estimate development is 5 times faster than C

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The future

• Decline in use of C and C
• An increasing use of dynamic languages
• Commercial software development no compile
  needed, development and testing is simplified
• Scripting languages are likely to become
  extremely important