in reply to On Scripting versus Compiled solutions

Reading the linked post, it strikes me that much of the time he talks about "Script" as if it's a coherent and tangible thing. He describes the properties of "Script" in terms that are too precise and specific. For example, he says "the script engines are bytecode-interpreted languages." Obviously this is not true of every langauge that could ever be called a "scripting language."

At first I thought he was simply overgeneralizing, but as I read I began to think perhaps he's talking about a very specific platform. I think he's talking about some MS "Script" subsystem. Maybe this is obvious to some people who have some idea of the context of this post, but for me it was a realization I came to slowly.

If this is indeed the case, then many (if not most) of the points he brings up are simply not useful for any other platform, much less scripting languages in general. This leads me to wonder what the point was of posting this link to a Perl site, except perhaps to spawn a similar discussion. If that was the intention, it's not particularly clear to me.

  • Comment on Re: On Scripting versus Compiled solutions

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Re: Re: On Scripting versus Compiled solutions
by Anonymous Monk on Mar 10, 2004 at 09:00 UTC
    Correct -- I spent five years working on the Windows Scripting family of technologies -- when I say "script" in my blog, I'm talking about VBScript and JScript and that's about it. I have no idea what the relevance is to perl, or why someone would post it here. I've never written anything more complex than "hello world" in perl. ActiveState did produce a version of perl that supports the Windows Script interfaces, but I know very, very little about it.
[reply]

      Well we certainly are glad you stopped by. Whats the relevence to perl? Well perl is one of the latest in a long and noble line of scripting languages, and is probably one of the most seriously used. We are as a group fairly interested in scripting languages as a whole, and while our thoughts about the ones you mention are probably on the whole less than positive we are sympathetic and well used to discussing the differences between scripting languages and compiled languages etc. O'Reiley wrote an article once about post modern languages, and how he considers things like Perl and Ruby to be of this class that perhaps you may find interesting.

      Again, as a group we have considerable knowledge and expertise in many scripting languages and platforms. If your area of interest is Scripting languages then maybe you should aquaint yourself better with Perl. We'd be sure to help you out and would welcome you to the community. C'mon, sign up, have fun, laugh, write an Acme:: module, become familiar with the best supported widest used most portable scripting language there is.

      And yes I stand by that last sentence. Show me a scripting language with the power of CPAN at your fingertips and I might consider otherwise. :-)

      Regarding "hello world"... 

      perl -e "print 'hello world'"

      [download]

      Maybe you aught to dig a little deeper. You may find its addictive though :-)


      ---
      demerphq

        First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
        -- Gandhi
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