What is the difference between a scripting language and a normal programming language?

Problem Detail: 

What is the difference between programming language and a scripting language? For example, consider C versus Perl.

Is the only difference that scripting languages require only the interpreter and don't require compile and linking?

Asked By : SS Hegde

Answered By : jmite

I think the difference has a lot more to do with the intended use of the language.

For example, Python is interpreted, and doesn't require compiling and linking, as is Prolog. I would classify both of these as programming languges.

Programming langauges are meant for writing software. They are designed to manage large projects. They can probably call programs, read files, etc., but might not be quite as good at that as a scripting language.

Scripting langauges aren't meant for large-scale software development. Their syntax, features, library, etc. are focused more around accomplishing small tasks quickly. This means they are sometimes more "hackish" than programming langauges, and might not have all of the same nice features. They're designed to make commonly performed tasks, like iterating through a bunch of files or performing sysadmin tasks, to be automated.

For example, Bash doesn't do arithmetic nicely, which would probably make writing large-scale software in it a nightmare.

As a kind of benchmark: I would never write a music player in perl, even though I probably could. Likewise, I would never try to use C++ to rename all the files in a given folder.

This line is becoming blurrier and blurrier. JavaScript, by definition a "scripting" langauge, is increasingly used to develop "web apps" which are more in the realm of software. Likewise, Python initially fit many of the traits of a scripting language but is seeing more and more sofware developed using Python as the primary platform.

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Question Source : http://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/3209