Python is the best and most popular general purpose scripting language; the universal scripting language

[Paul Prescod]

Jonathan Daugherty wrote:

> # So, what makes something a "scripting language" as opposed to a 
> # "programming language"?
> 
> In a general sense I think "programming" languages are compiled and
> "scripting" languages are interpreted.  (If you want to go academic,
> you could say python is both, but the internals of the interpreter are
> irrelavant insofar as one might say it is an interpreted language.)
> 

So which is Lisp? Prolog? Smalltalk? ML?

What happens if I compile Python to a binary via Pyrex or to JVM 
bytecodes via Jython?

I propose:

A scripting language is a language that makes scripting (gluing together 
components) easy.

A programming language is a language that makes programming (including 
the creation of components) easy.

Python is both.

  Paul Prescod