Coding Horror: A Scripter at Heart. Sigh. I cannot believe that the false distinction between “scripting” and “programming” is still being discussed.
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Coding Horror: A Scripter at Heart. Sigh. I cannot believe that the false distinction between “scripting” and “programming” is still being discussed.
Exactly! well said
Justin Mason - 26th January 2009 22:12 - #
"False distinction" as there is no distinction or there is another right one?
I've had people tell me they like "compiled languages" more than "scripting languages" because they are more powerful. =/
phl - 27th January 2009 10:09 - #
I think the problem is using the term language to make the differentiation rather than intention.
Jeff actually makes the analogy that "scripting" is sketching and "programming" is painting. Which I think works well: They're simply different approaches, using different materials, but in the end they're both visual (read system interpetable) representations of something in the authors mind, either can be complex and beautiful or poorly executed and ugly.
If you're continuously having to adjust your image, you're not going to be breaking out the oils, you'll be sketching. If you're decorating the sistine chappel you may start out with a sketch but you're going to be painting on the stucco at some point.
All we do is shuffle bits around, how you do it is a matter of need, style & preference.
Thanks for the clarification.
I honestly have always thought of scripting languages as languages suitable for interacting with an already existing object-graph or runtime. With features/design decisions to support this. Do these features make them bad general purpose languages? It depends.
Scripting is what you do not what language you are using has always been my take.