Some people think that only compiled languages are true programming languages. (Needless to say, they’re wrong.)
Yeah, once you know all the details, the distinction disappears. The term doesn’t clarify understanding.
If I had to make a distinction, it’d be that scripting languages are meant to be a simple way to serve a specific niche. Things like SQL or Excel formulas. It doesn’t apply to Python.
Needless to say, they’re wrong.
Not least because there’s no such thing as a “compiled” or “interpreted” language.
Which is to say that it’s a property of the tooling rather than the language itself. There’s nothing stopping anyone from writing a C interpreter or a Python compiler.
There’s nothing stopping anyone from writing a C interpreter
Except god, hopefully
Not least because there’s no such thing as a “compiled” or “interpreted” language.
I’d say there is (but the line is a bit blurry). IMHO the main distinction is the presence (and prevalence) of
evalsemantics in the language; if it is present, then any “compiler” would have to embed itself into the generated code, thus de-facto turning it into a bundled interpreter.That said, the argument that interpreted languages are somehow not programming languages is stupid.
