Novel Thoughts on Scripting and Languages

[Alex K. Angelopoulos]

James,

Just a couple of corrections here - although let me start out by saying that
anytime another scripting language is available, it's a good thing.

-- 

"James Huang" <judoscript at hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:52719db8.0301062130.5299a0ff at posting.google.com...
> Perl and Python programmers are all material witnesses
> of how scripting can greatly improve productivity. That's
> why scripting languages enjoy great success. Scripting
> means that we can issue OS commends from within a
> full-fledged programming language -- a scripting language.
>
> Have you ever thought about scripting more areas, such
> as SQL, XML, EJB, SGML, HTTP, E-mail and GUI, the way you
> script OS commands, all at once? Think about it!

I do all that with script.  My actual environment in usually Windows, and I tend
to use WSH; generally, it's VBScript, but when I can use Python I can actually
use the exact same techniques.  I can even use the Active Scripting tools to
call across from Python to VBScript and vice-versa.

> In Perl and Python, anything beyond OS-level scripting
> must be programmed through some kind of APIs.

That's not quite true. ;)

I can read and write XML, send commands via HTTP, retrieve pages and the text,
and handle email from script without touching a single API.  I can automate
Office applications on Windows.  I can parse code, do numerical analysis, etc -
and when I have components written in Python I can call them from anything else
on my PC.

> ...but Java is standing out.
> This is reality. A same Java API can be used by Java
> (a popular system language) and also scriptable by any
> Java-based scripting languages. You can't beat that.
>
> But Java does have limitations, since it is a common
> denominator of all platforms.
>
> The rule of thumb is, if your scripts make a lot of
> system calls, stay where you are; otherwise, Java is
> well worth investigating. If you do, then do it with
> the right tool -- JudoScript -- you won't regret it.
>

One other concern here.  There are serious problems with Windows users being
"orphaned" now that Sun has killed the native machine implementation Microsoft
had.  It DOES have 3-4 good years of life left in it, and possibly more if Sun
cleans up their Windows implementation (I'm speaking about relative performance
issues and resilience to breakage in use - that's been a historic problem for me
with the Sun version on  Windows PCs).  If JudoScript is independent of Java, or
if Sun gets rolling, this may not be a hindrance.

Good luck!