[Tutor] what is the difference between a scripting and object oriented programming language?

[Tom Plunket]

Nick Jensen wrote:

> What is the definition of a scripting language?

A scripting language is a language that one writes to script
things.  :)

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ScriptingLanguage

> Does it relate to scripts at all like those that you'd run on a 
> server for instance to automate certain tasks? I'm actually a 
> network admin and use scripts sometimes, but was curious how that 
> ties in with python.

Well yeah, that's where "scripting" comes from.  While the
etymological roots of the word 'script' come from essentially
'writing', the hacking community commandeered the use of the
word, likely from it's use in movies and TV- a script is a list
of instructions that the actors use to lead them through the
episode.

"Scripting" is largely orthogonal (e.g. pretty much entirely
unrelated) to Object-Oriented technologies.  OO relates more to
"procedural" or "functional", in that these are ways in which one
can design programs.  There are OO scripting languages (Ruby
comes to mind), Python and even Perl have OO features, and there
are straight-up procedural scripting languages as well (e.g.
MS-DOS BAT files).  OO is more a way of thinking and coding than
it is the means to get there, and scripting represents one of the
ways to go on your journey.

There may be some insight to glean from here, too:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SeriousVersusScriptingLanguages

-tom!