Introduction

Scripting languages

In the world of programming we may distinguish "full size" programming languages like Visual Basic, C++, Java. They are used to create a independent "standalone" software applications. After programming writes the code (which is usually stored in plain text format) special compiler must be use to "digest" this code and compile it into executable file or class file for Java.

The process of compiling and format of compiled executable file is out of scope of programmer work – it's enough to know for example that a result of compiling is the file with EXE extension running on Windows platform. Neither user no programmer is able to look inside executable file.

Scripting languages are not independent. They cannot be used without a "host" application. Usually they are written as small code fragments and interpreted on demand. Typical example is JavaScript language. JavaScript code is embedded into HTML in a text format. When user downloads the HTML page browser encounters scripts and executes them. Alert messages, content changing dynamically, rollover buttons, pop-up windows and page redirection are usually done with JavaScript.

Some scripts are executed on the server. Such technologies as ASP, JSP, CGI use scripts which are executed on the server. They deal with storing and retrieving information, security issues, send e-mails and perform other tasks.

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