From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,84bf0ec36cf20893 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-05-15 19:46:41 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Would an *AdaScript* language be a good / bad idea? Date: 15 May 2002 19:46:40 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <5ee5b646.0205151846.4b14a73f@posting.google.com> References: <5ee5b646.0205140618.2d789fc9@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.232.38.244 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1021517201 4329 127.0.0.1 (16 May 2002 02:46:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 16 May 2002 02:46:41 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:24150 Date: 2002-05-16T02:46:41+00:00 List-Id: "Steve Doiel" wrote in message news:... > "Robert Dewar" wrote in message > news:5ee5b646.0205140618.2d789fc9@posting.google.com... > Your definition of "scripting language" is certainly different from mine. I > did a google search to find a definition and found: > http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/glossary/scripting.html > which is consistant with how I would describe a scripting language. Here is the quote in question: A scripting language is a simple programming language used to write an executable list of commands, called a script. A scripting language is a high- level command language that is interpreted rather than compiled, and is translated on the fly rather than first translated entirely. JavaScript, Perl, VBscript, and AppleScript are scripting languages rather than general- purpose programming languages. I find this definition silly. All these languages can perfectly well be compiled, and any general purpose programming language can be interpreted. The difference between interpretetation and compilation is an implementation detail that has nothing whatever to do with the language. For the most part, the distinction between scripting languages and general purpose programming languages is bogus (and ends up being an excuse for some extraordinarily poor language design flying under the "scripting language" banner). When I say that we use Ada "as a" scripting language, what I mean is that we use Ada as a (perfectly satisfactory) language for achieving the kind of thing that is often done in a scripting language (by the way such languages often come along not only with bad designs, but bad software practices, including sloppy design and lack of proper documentation). To the extent that scripting language means very-high-level-language in the sense of SETL or SNOBOL4 or other garbage collected dynamic languages with complex data structures, then that's interesting, but such features are by no means essential for writing an "executable series of commands". P.S. If you disagree with the claim that these languages can be compiled, please first read my article in SP&E 1977 on SNOBOL-4 implementation. > While I agree that anything that may be done with a scripting language may > also be done with a general purpose compiled language, IMHO they are not the > same thing. If you want to adopt the above definition, then the main thing that makes an important difference to you is that the language must be interpreted. But how can this possibly per se be an advantage. You might want fast compilation, but that's certainly possible (SPTIBOL/370 compiles at tens of millions of lines a minute, essentially instantaneous, even for quite complex operations). You might want high level language features (but that's achievable in compiled implementations. Perhaps you want very slow execution -- true, that is harder to achieve without inefficient interpretation :-) :-)