Scripting Language City

Ursus Maximus writes "Scripting Language City is for folks who want to learn more about the future of this increasingly important subset of the programming universe. Scripting languages are not just for odd jobs anymore ;-))). Special attention is paid to four languages in Python City, Ruby City, Perl City, and JavaScript Expert Systems which includes a Scripting Language Chooser Program as well as a Basketball Expert Ssystem and a Football Expert System that are certainly something different from the usual same old mouse-over scripts usually found on JavaScript sites. There is also a web spider program that scrapes the web daily and provides updated lists of new web articles on scripting languages, with seperates outputs for each of the featured languages. as added bonuses, there is a page of essays and resources on open source and the free software movement called Farnham's Freehold and a page called The Linux Chronicles that follows the experiences of a Linux newbie with wit and humor. Not a slick professional web site, Scripting Language City is a work of love by a paramour of everything connected with scripting languages, open source, and the programming of free software."

Comments

Factors in choosing a scripting language

[Pingster]

The scripting language chooser is a simple Javascript program that adds up scores for each of the scripting languages based on eight decision factors. A quick look at the source of the page reveals the weightings used to compare the four candidate languages:

....Python: a*10 + b*10 + c*-10 + d*7 + e*6 + f*10 + g*10 + h*7
......Perl: a*6 + b*7 + c*-10 + d*10 + e*10 + f*10 + g*1 + h*2
......Ruby: a*5 + b*8 + c*-10 + d*6 + e*1 + f*10 + g*7 + h*10
JavaScript: a*9 + b*9 + c*10 + d*-10 + e*10 + f*1 + g*6 + h*6

where a = ease of learning, b = ease of use, c = client-side Web scripting, d = server-side Web scripting, e = popularity and installed base, f = graphics, g = readability, h = object model.

Or presented another way:

learnability: Python=10, JS=9, Perl=6, Ruby=5.
usability: Python=10, JS=9, Ruby=8, Perl=7.
client-side scripting: JS=10, all others=-10.
server-side scripting: Perl=10, Python=7, Ruby=6, JS=-10.
popularity: Perl=10, JS=10, Python=6, Ruby=1.
graphics: JS=1, all others=10.
readability: Python=10, Ruby=7, JS=6, Perl=1.
object model: Ruby=10, Python=7, JS=6, Perl=2.

Now I'm not sure I'd agree with all of these ratings (e.g. Python 10 times more readable than Perl? Seems pretty harsh...), but they're interesting to look at. They seem pretty off-the-cuff to me. Perhaps they say as much about the opinions of the Web site author as they do about the languages.

Re:Web design

[JimDabell]

Quite. You have to wonder about the quality of a website that claims to offer advice on scripting (both on and off the web), yet cannot even cobble together a decent website (not just the aesthetics, I'm talking about <font> elements, etc).

What about ease of embedding?

[SilentStrike]

I am looking for a scripting langauge that is easy to embed into a C++ program (Can I inherit from my C++ classes from the scripting langauge?, for instance), portable between at least Linux and Windows, and fairly cleanly designed. Does anyone have any recommendations for such a beast? I currently have a fair grasp on Python, and I have been looking into Lua as well.