Scripting languages

primary purpose of scripting languages

to coordinate among existing programs and automate tasks( like format conversion, dynamic web content generation, authentication etc)

glue languages

designed to combine existing software components into larger systems. Emphazing more flexibility reapid development and dynamic chaining than performace

2 main ancestors of scripting

Shells/ command interpreters

text processing tools

scripting languages

5-10x faster to write, 10-20x slower to run

examples: Perl( used for server side web scripting) , Python, Ruby, Tcl

running

line by line or just in time compiled interactively or via batch

portability

usually interpreted via interpreters

statically or dynamically typed

dynamically typed

built in capabilities

OS interaction, pattern matching, string manipulation, database access

common data structures in SL

Arrays, strings, lists, sets etc

memory management

Garbage collector

extension language

scripting language used to add commands or functionality to an existent application

client side scripting

responsive behavior like mouse movement typing and animations

example: javaScript

XML

extensible markup language focuses on data structure and content