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

what about VBA?

[b_pretender]

I'll probably be modded down for saying this, but what about VBA? It is one of the most important scripting languages. I work in the finance world where Perl/Python/C++ on Unix are used for many things, but VBA is just as or more important because we all use Excel, and *the* scripting language for excel is VBA.

I also know that other fields use VBA without knowing that the other scripting languages even exist. Having a scripting city without VBA is sort of like having San Fransisco without china town.

Even if you are vehemently opposed to VBA for moral reasons, think about the benefit of having a VBA section of your website. When people search the web for VBA help, they come to your website, get the help that they need and learn that these other beautiful scripting languages exist that might provide benefits which VBA cannot.

Re:what about VBA?

[__past__]

There are several common definitions of "scripting language", none of which is very useful.

Perl, Python and Java get compiled to bytecode, too - but (AFAIK) Perl always compiles to bytecode "on the fly" and never stores it on disk, Python compiles modules on the first import and keeps bytecode files for faster future loading, and Java uses only the byte-compiled files. Other languages, like OCaml or Lisp, can be interpreted or compiled to either byte- or native code. Somebody wrote an interpreter for C. So, which of these languages is a scripting language?

I guess the best definition would be "People are more likely to consider it for smaller projects". It's not a property of a language or an implementation of a language (which might be identical, e.g. perl defines Perl), but of the mindset of it's users.

That said, the term "scripting" originally meant writing glue code to control the "real" app, which is pretty much what VBA does. (BTW, you do know the difference between VB and VBA, do you? VB is the one that is used for standalone apps, while VBA is what you get in the "macro editor" of MS Office. They are not the same language.)

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).

Exactly what is the definition...

[bihoy]

Thank you for the clarification. I *was* thinking of VB and not VBA.
I just did a bit of research to try to find the definition of a scripting language.
Apparently so have a lot of other folks, as I came across the following:

The Definition os a Scripting Language