Scripting vs. whatever, again (was Re: Long Live Python!)

[James_Althoff at i2.com]

Peter Hansen wrote:
>Interesting (?) special case: what do Jython programmers
>use to refer to their source.  Do you call it, as you likely
>do for Python, a script, or do you think of it as a program?
>(And I don't know the nature of the compilation stage:
>is it automated as with Python, or manual as with Java?)

Jython has the same "auto-compile and run" mechanism as CPython.

In terms of what we call our Jython code, it depends on the context.  I
generally use the phrase "scripting capabilities" as opposed to "scripting
language".  For me it makes more sense to characterize certain
capabilities: "write and run", "very high-level, built-in, domain-specific
functionality", "embedded in a particular framework", etc. as
"scripting-like" capabilities.  Then I can say that Python is a
full-fledged, high-level language that also has "scripting capabilities"
and avoid the debate of whether Python is a "scripting" language OR a
"programming" language -- because it's both.  :-)

So getting back to the question at hand, if I write a 10,000 line business
application in Jython, I call it a "program".  If I include in that program
the ability for customers to add extra buttons to the UI along with a few
lines of Python that act handlers for those added buttons, I call those
handlers "script".  The "script" in this case is not script *because* it is
written in Python.  It is "script" because it is code that has "script"
-like capabilites and is being used in a "script"-like role (it is embedded
in the framework of my application, you can write a few lines of code in a
configuratio file and not have to compile it and link it, etc.).

Jim