An overview of scripting languages Alexander Kanavin Teachers

An overview of scripting languages Alexander Kanavin Teachers: Barbara Miraftabi, Jan Voracek

What are scripting languages? Interpreted, never compiled n Automatic memory handling n High-level data types: lists, associative arrays n Can access modules written in lowerlevel languages (C, C++) Most important: allow to treat code as data and vice versa n

Application areas n n Command scripting languages Application scripting languages Markup languages Universal scripting languages

Command scripting n n Control execution of programs and tasks Shell language is the prime example

Application scripting languages n n End-user application programming Visual Basic for Applications Emphasis on user interface and components embedding Java. Script

Markup languages n n Tags in text give instructions to the markup language processor Te. X HTML XML

Universal scripting languages n n Perl Python Tcl Second wave: web services (PHP)

Why are they important? n n n 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

The future n n 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