Scripting Language vs Programming Language

Question

Can anyone explain the difference between Scripting Language and Programming Language please  Also can you state some examples for each  I have Googled a lot but I always find the best answers from Stack Overflow

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All scripting languages are programming languages.

Languages are not classed as script or not - it entirely depends on the execution environment.

If the environment is one that is interpreted, this is commonly referred to as a scripting environment.

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I m in a discord with the fact that languages using interpreters are scripting languages and the one gets compiled are programming languages  We can develop an interpreter or compiler for any language  Interpreted environment suits web scripting better and makes it easier that s why we have it   Well  I feel like there isn t any difference between scripting language and programming language  It s all about getting the job done  When it comes to web related tasks we call them Web scripts considering small task and that way we may also call the system related tasks as system or OS level scripts and the programming language we use to accomplish those tasks as system scripting languages   Also it s not so that one cannot write system level code in Python and Web scripts in C language  definitely one can do if we can establish the required platform and environment   But all it takes is too much of effort which may affect the time constraint for the rapid development and the small bit of latency reduced is not going to benefit us much in web scripts  But the wise versa is not true if we perform system level tasks in Python   Bottom line  language selection depends upon the nature of the task to be performed and discriminating a language as scripting language is a myth

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In Scripting languages like  JavaScript and old PHP versions  we use existing fundamental functions and method for performing our job  Lets take an example in JavaScript we can use ajax or web-sockets only if they are supported by browser or methods exist or them in browser  But in languages like C or C     Java we can write that feature from scratch even if any library for that feature is not available but we can t do so in JavaScript   can you support web-sockets in Internet Explorer 8 or prior with the help of JavaScript But you can write a plugin in C or C   or Java which may add a feature of web-socket to Internet Explorer 8   Basically in Scripting languages we write a code in a sequence which execute existing methods in a sequence to complete our job  Entering numbers and formula in a digital calculator to do a operation is also a very example of scripting language We should note that the compiler run-time-environment of every scripting language is always written in programming language in which we can add more features and methods and can write new libraries   PHP This is language which is somewhat b w programming and scripting  We can add new methods by adding compiled extensions written in another High Level Language  We can t add high level features of networking or creating image processing libraries directly in PHP   P S  I am really sorry for revolving my answer  around PHP JavaScript only but I use these two because I have a considerable experience in these two

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Scripting languages are programming languages that don t require an explicit compilation step   For example  in the normal case  you have to compile a C program before you can run it  But in the normal case  you don t have to compile a JavaScript program before you run it  So JavaScript is sometimes called a  scripting  language   This line is getting more and more blurry since compilation can be so fast with modern hardware and modern compilation techniques  For instance  V8  the JavaScript engine in Google Chrome and used a lot outside of the browser as well  actually compiles the JavaScript code on the fly into machine code  rather than interpreting it   In fact  V8 s an optimizing two-phase compiler    Also note that whether a language is a  scripting  language or not can be more about the environment than the language  There s no reason you can t write a C interpreter and use it as a scripting language  and people have   There s also no reason you can t compile JavaScript to machine code and store that in an executable file  and people have   The language Ruby is a good example of this  The original implementation was entirely interpreted  a  scripting  language   but there are now multiple compilers for it   Some examples of  scripting  languages  e g   languages that are traditionally used without an explicit compilation step     Lua JavaScript VBScript and VBA Perl   And a small smattering of ones traditionally used with an explicit compilation step    C C   D Java  but note that Java is compiled to bytecode  which is then interpreted and or recompiled at runtime  Pascal      and then you have things like Python that sit in both camps  Python is widely used without a compilation step  but the main implementation  CPython  does that by compiling to bytecode on-the-fly and then running the bytecode in a VM  and it can write that bytecode out to files   pyc   pyo  for use without recompiling   That s just a very few  if you do some research you can find a lot more

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Apart from the difference that Scripting language is Interpreted and Programming language is Compiled  there is another difference as below  which I guess has been missed    A scripting language is a programming language that is used to manipulate  customize  and automate the facilities of an existing system  In such systems  useful functionality is already available through a user interface  and the scripting language is a mechanism for exposing that functionality to program control    Whereas a Programming Language generally is used to code the system from Scratch   src ECMA

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Programming Language           Is compiled to machine code and run on the hardware of the underlying Operating System    Scripting Language             Is unstructure subset of programming language  It is generally interpreted       it basically  scripts  other things to do stuff  The primary focus isn t primarily building your own apps but getting an existing app to act the way you want  e g  JavaScript for browsers  TCL etc        But there are situation where a programming language is converted to interpreter and vice-verse like use have a C interpreter where you can  C  Script      Scripts are generally written to control an application behaviour where as Programming Language is use to build applications       But beware that the demarcation is blurring day - by - day as an example of Python it depends on how one uses the language

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Scripted languages Scripting languages are interpreted within another program  JavaScript is embedded within a browser and interpreted by that browser  Examples of scripting languages  JavaScript Perl Python  Advantages of Scripting languages   Simple     Scripting languages are easier to write than programming language   Fewer Lines of Code  LOC    Programmed languages Programming languages like Java are compiled and not  interpreted by another application in the same way  Examples programming languages  C C   and Java  More Details  http   www yorku ca nmw facs1939f13 javascript all js scriptingVSprogramming html http   www killersites com blog 2005 scripting-vs-programming-is-there-a-difference

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Scripting languages are a subset of programming languages      Scripting languages are not compiled to machine code by the user  python  perl  shell  etc     Rather  another program  called the interpreter  runs the program and simulates its behavior  Some programming languages that are not scripting  C  C    Haskell  and other  compiled  languages   are compiled to machine code  and is subsequently run

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If we see logically programming language and scripting language so this is 99 09  same   because we use same concept like loop   control condition  variable and all so we can say yes both are same but there is only one thing is different between them that is in C C   and other programming language we compile the code before execution   but in the PHP   JavaScript and other scripting language we don t need to compile we directly execute in the browser    Thanks Nitish K  Jha

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Back when the world was young and in the PC world you chose from  exe or  bat  the delineation was simple  Unix systems have always had shell scripts   bin sh   bin csh   bin ksh  etc  and Compiled languages  C C   Fortran    To differentiate roles and responsibilities  the compiled languages  often referred to as 3rd Generation Languages  were seen a  programming  languages and  scripting  languages were seen as those that invoked an interpreter  often referred to as 4th Generation Languages   Scripting languages were often used as  glue  to connect between multiple commands compiled programs so that the user didn t have to worry about a set of steps in order to carry out their task - they developed a single file  that delineated what steps they wanted to accomplish  and this became a  script  for anyone to follow   Various people groups wrote new interpreters to solve a specific problem domain  awk is one of the better-known ones  and it was used mostly for pattern matching and applying a series of data transforms on input  It worked well  but had a limited problem domain  The expansion of that domain was all but impossible because the source code was unavailable  Perl  Larry Wall  principle author architect  tool scripting to the next level - and developed an interpreter that not only allowed the user to run system commands  manipulate input and output data  supported typeless variables  but also to access Unix system level APIs as functions from within the scripts themselves  It was probably one of the first widely used high-level scripting languages  It is with Perl  IMHO  that scripting languages crossed the arbitrary line and added the capabilities of programming languages   Your question was specifically about Python  Because the python interpreter runs against a text file containing the python code  and that the python code can run anywhere that there is a python interpreter  I would say that it is a scripting language  in the same vein as Perl   You do not need to recompile the user python command file for each different OS CPU Architecture  as you would with C C   Fortran   making it significantly more portable and easier to use   Credit for this answer goes to Jerrold  Jerry  Heyman  Original thread  https   www researchgate net post Is Python a Programming language or Scripting Language

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I think that what you are stating as the  difference  is actually a consequence of the real difference   The actual difference is the target of the code written  Who is going to run this code   A scripting language is used to write code that is going to target a software system  It s going to automate operations on that software system  The script is going to be a sequence of instructions to the target software system   A programming language targets the computing system  which can be a real or virtual machine  The instructions are executed by the machine   Of course  a real machine understands only binary code so you need to compile the code of a programming language  But this is a consequence of targeting a machine instead of a program   In the other hand  the target software system of an script may compile the code or interpret it  Is up to the software system   If we say that the real difference is whether it is compiled or not  then we have a problem because when Javascript runs in V8 is compiled and when it runs in Rhino is not   It gets more confusing since scripting languages have evolved to become very powerful  So they are not limited to create small scripts to automate operations on another software system  you can create any rich applications with them   Python code targets an interpreter so we can say that it  scripts  operations on that interpreter  But when you write Python code you don t see it as scripting an interpreter  you see it as creating an application  The interpreter is just there to code at a higher level among other things  So for me Python is more a programming language than an scripting language

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To understand the difference between a scripting language and a programming language  one has to understand why scripting languages were born   Initially  there were programming languages that was written to build programs like excel  word  browsers  games and etc   These programs were built with languages like c and java   Overtime  these programs needed a way for users to create new functionality  so they had to provide an interface to their bytecode and hence scripting languages were born   A scripting language usually isnt compiled so can run as soon as you write something meaningful   Hence excel may be built using C   but it exposes a scripting language called VBA for users to define functionality   Similarly browsers may be built with C   Java but they expose a scripting language called javascript  not related to java in any way    Games  are usually built with C   but expose a language called Lua for users to define custom functionality   A scripting language usually sits behind some programming language   Scripting languages usually have less access to the computers native abilities since they run on a subset of the original programming language   An example here is that Javascript will not be able to access your file system   Scripting languages are usually slower than programming languages   Although scripting languages may have less access and are slower  they can be very powerful tools   One factor attributing to a scripting languages success is the ease of updating   Do you remember the days of java applets on the web  this is an example of running a programming language  java  vs running a scripting language  javascript    At the time  computers were not as powerful and javascript wasn t as mature so Java applets dominated the scenes   But Java applets were annoying  they required the user to sort of load and compile the language   Fast forward to today  Java applets are almost extinct and Javascript dominates the scene  Javascript is extremely fast to load since most of the browser components have been installed already   Lastly  scripting languages are also considered programming languages  although some people refuse to accept this  - the term we should be using here is scripting languages vs compiled languages

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The differences are becoming fewer and less important  Traditionally  scripting languages extend existing programs    I think that s the main definition of  scripting  is that it refers to writing a set of instructions for an existing entity to perform  However  where scripting languages started with proprietary and colloquial syntax  most of the prevalent ones these days owe some relationship to C   I think the  interpreted vs compiled  distinction is really a symptom of extending an existing program  with a built in interpreter   rather than an intrinsic difference  What programmers and laymen are more concerned about is   what is the programmer doing   The fact that one program is interpreted and another is compiled means very little in determining the difference in activity by the creator  You don t judge a playwright on whether his plays are more commonly read aloud or performed on stage  do you

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Scripting languages are programming languages that people consider as scripting languages  It s an artificial category with no clear boundary  and where every proposed rule has an exception   The classical rules used to say that a language is a scripting language are characterizing  not defining  If a language satisfies a number of the rules  there is a good chance it s considered a scripting language  If not  there s a good chance it s not  The rules usually include    It s intended for small  scripts   not large programs  It s embedded in another application  used for small modifications of that application  It s interpreted rather than compiled  It s intended for novice programmers  not professionals  It s name ends in  script     I would add    A scripting language is a programming language where almost all errors are detected at runtime    That is  it could be an interpreted language   If a programming language has significant  compile-time  behavior where it analyses the code and reports errors without running the program  like type errors from C  Java or C   then it s most likely not considered a scripting language   Traditionally a lot of scripting languages have been interpreted directly from source  but the more popular of them have gotten more performant implementations that precompile the code  like Python s  pyc files  or optimizing JavaScript engines that compile to native code before running    If the language could be implemented by an interpreter  which only looks at the source code as it is running it  then it s likely considered a scripting language  Whether it actually is implemented that way is not important  but if it can be  then it also can t require extensive compile-time error checking of the code   If the language provides a useful static semantics which helps detect errors  other than syntax errors  without needing to run the program  it s probably not a scripting language   There are always exceptions  usually based on tradition around a language more than any actual rule   BASIC is not usually considered a  scripting language   even though it satisfies pretty much all the criteria that anyone has ever used for being one  That s why Visual Basic Script had to add the  script  to the name  to distinguish itself from Visual Basic  a  real  programming language intended for larger programs   BASIC is also an old programming language  like COBOL and Fortran  from before people expected static analysis from a language  and basically before  scripting languages  were even a thing

[scripting] Scripting Language vs Programming Language

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