Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL?

prechelt@ira.uka.de (Lutz Prechelt)
Mon, 23 Aug 1993 12:36:55 GMT

          From comp.compilers

Related articles
Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? tellab5!odgate!dbk@uunet.UU.NET (1993-08-20)
Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? prener@watson.ibm.com (1993-08-23)
Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? prechelt@ira.uka.de (1993-08-23)
Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? damurphy@wc.novell.com (Duane Murphy) (1993-08-25)
Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? lwall@netlabs.com (1993-08-29)
Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM (Paul Robinson) (1993-08-29)
Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? julian@feenix.metronet.com (Phillip Julian Eby) (1993-08-31)
Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? ch+@cs.cmu.edu (1993-08-30)
Re: Scripting vs. Programming language vs. 4GL? prechelt@ira.uka.de (Lutz Prechelt) (1993-08-30)
[6 later articles]
| List of all articles for this month |

Newsgroups: comp.compilers
From: prechelt@ira.uka.de (Lutz Prechelt)
Keywords: interpreter
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
References: 93-08-096
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 12:36:55 GMT

tellab5!odgate!dbk@uunet.UU.NET (Dan Keith) writes:
|> I'm embroiled in a debate with my colleagues over the difference between
|> the term "programming language" and the term "scripting language".


I think at least in the Unix world the most-used criterion is
whether the language is being compiled or not:


      Everything that is interpreted may be called a 'script'.


I would say that every language which is (almost?) ALWAYS interpreted
instead of compiled can be called a scripting language.


The two terms are not orthogonal, though:
For instance sed and perl are both scripting languages in the above
sense, but I would not speak of sed as a programming language.
Perl, on the other hand, clearly is one.


And the borderlines are also not sharp:
Think of Common Lisp which nobody would call a scripting languages,
although it is at most partially compiled.


    Lutz


--
Lutz Prechelt (email: prechelt@ira.uka.de)
Institut fuer Programmstrukturen und Datenorganisation
Universitaet Karlsruhe; 76128 Karlsruhe; Germany
(Voice: ++49/721/608-4068, FAX: ++49/721/694092)


--


Post a followup to this message

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.