(skript´ing lang´gwij) (n.) A high-level programming language that is interpreted by another program at runtime rather than compiled by the computer’s processor as other programming languages (such as C and C++) are. Scripting languages, which can be embedded within HTML, commonly are used to add functionality to a Web page, such as different menu styles or graphic displays or to serve dynamic advertisements. These types of languages are client-side scripting languages, affecting the data that the end user sees in a browser window. Other scripting languages are server-side scripting languages that manipulate the data, usually in a database, on the server.
Scripting languages came about largely because of the development of the Internet as a communications tool. JavaScript, ASP, JSP, PHP, Perl, Tcl and Python are examples of scripting languages.
An Empirical Comparison of C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx, and Tcl Eighty implementations of the same set of requirements, created by 74 different programmers in various languages, are compared for several properties, such as run time, memory consumption, source text length, comment density, program structure, reliability, and the amount of effort required for writing them.
