Scripting (was Re: Python books, literature etc)

[J]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 09:37, Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp at snipabacken.se> wrote:
> Regarding the book's title: is it just me, or are Python programmers
> in general put off when people call it "scripting"?
>
> I won't attempt a strict definition of the term "scripting language",
> but it seems like non-programmers use it to mean "less scary than what
> you might think of as programming", while programmers interpret it as
> "not useful as a general-purpose language".

I dunno...  I consider it programming when I'm writing bash scripts.
Same with running python scripts.

My personal take on it, so YMMV, is that scripting is just a synonym
for programming an interpreted language, as opposed to programming
(common parlance) which is usually meant writing code for a compiled
language (C, C++, VB, etc...)

Then again, I also tend to use scripting, coding and programming
interchangeably too.

And sometimes scripting = just writing a quick and dirty program to do
a small task, programming = writing something much larger for long
term use.

Either way, I'm not offended by any of those terms as they all involve
programming, regardless of whether or not someone actually calls it
programming.

For another analogy, what do they call Chinese food in China?  Food.

Cheers

Jeff



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