Slashdot Mirror
International Workshop on Interpreted Languages
Sebastian Bergmann writes "Interpreted programming languages are increasingly gaining importance in both the commercial and scientific world. The 1st International Workshop on Interpreted Languages that will be held during the Net.ObjectDays 2004 conference this fall in Erfurt, Germany takes this into account and will present current developments from the exciting world of interpreted languages. The Call for Papers was recently announced and research papers and industry case studies related to Interpreted Languages can be submitted until April 23rd, 2004."
I've always enjoyed the superior edit-rerun cycle that comes with many interpreted languages. You bang out a few lines of code, hit return and see the results immediately.
Compiled languages may be faster for silicon hardware, but interpreted languages are often faster for neural wetware. Given the decreasing cost of silicon and the increasing cost of labor, interpretted langauges should see increase usage for many "small" programming tasks.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
This world of interpreted programming languages, to which also C# and Java belong, is changing
Thats a somewhat liberal intepretation of the word "interpreted", I would say.
I think they should just have left off the word "interpreted", or better yet, replaced it with "scripted". Mentioning Java and C# just confuses the issue.
Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use - Mark Twain
Don't forget the wonders of lexical closures, something offered by any self respecting interpreted language.
And also offered by any self respecting compiled language. Just because C doesn't have 'em doesn't mean nobody else does, you know.
Reviewing the comments made thus far, despite the fact that most are simply trolls honing their skills, it seems to bear pointing out that just because a language is high level, does not mean that it is interpreted. While many high level languages are interpreted, and many interpreted languages are high level, there are many exceptions to the rule.
Common Lisp, which has been mentioned here as the great shining hope for compiled environments is a fairly high level, abstract language. Java is, at its basest level, the jvm, an interpreted, primitive system, although the byte code compiler has made Java increasingly higher level.
Many of the arguments made from one side or another are commentary on the relative merits of high level and low level languages, not a discussion of platform neutrality, execution performance and various methods of using optimization to reduce the penalty of interpreters.
For my two cents on the whole performance issue, an indirect-threaded Forth is in many ways an interpreted language which is very low level and quite fast. It wasn't designed by a pubescent teenager, and Forth images are often smaller than comparable C programs, despite having the interpreter included in the image.
Weapons of Mass Analysis