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by Weiqi Gao.
Original Post: My 10 Favorite Scripting Languages
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Scripting languages are a hot topic these days. "What's your favorite scripting language?" is a question that will surely provoke a heated debate anywhere programmers gather.
And surprisingly, people's answers to this question are usually not based on reality. In my conversations with other programmers, when they say "my favorite scripting language is <X>" they really mean "I just heard of this cool language called <X> and I'm learning it right now and I wish I can use it instead of the one I learned last year, which is not cool any more."
You will get a better picture if you ask these questions "What scripting languages have you used during the last week in your day-to-day programming work when you had an occasion to use such a thing? How about last month? Year? Decade?"
Well, I asked myself the questions. And here are my answers, in the order in which each item came into my mind:
bash: The default command shell for Linux and Mac OS X. Available on Windows through Cygwin. Learned it by reading the bash man pages. I use it every day.
gawk: Usually available where bash is. Learned it by reading the gawk man pages. It's a rule-based text processor. It's more powerful than you think. I use it every day.
regex: Not strictly a scripting language, but very scripting-languagy. I usually use it in conjunction with grep or awk. Learned it by reading the O'Reilly Mastering Regular Expression book. For some reason, this is a language that everybody assumes that everybody else don't know, or don't know enough and insists on teaching it again. I use it everyday mostly in vi doing searching and replacing.
Jython: The Java implementation of the popular Python language. I fire it up when I want to learn a new Java API. I like its regularity of syntax and Java integration.
Bean Shell: Similar to Jython but with a more familiar Java-like syntax. I use it less often than Jython.
Kawa: It's a Java based Scheme/XQuery implementation. Also not strictly a scripting language. I learned Scheme by reading SICP. I learned XQuery by studying the W3C specs. Fun. One of these days I'll be a master of call/cc.
JavaScript: Can you say AJaX? I also liked E4X. I learned it by reading the spec and the O'Reilly book JavaScript the Definitive Guide. I haven't done enough Web programming to hate it yet.
DOS batch files: I wrote my fair share of DOS batch files way back when. I learned it through the DOS Help facility.
Visual Basic: When all your nails are COM objects, your hammer has to be Visual Basic. I learned BASIC in DOS/QBasic and VB3, used it up to VB5. I know how to call into the Windows API. So don't mess with me!
bc -l: An arbitrary precision calculator. The GNU version is everywhere. I learned the language when I was five. I use it in my daysago calculations. Very handy. When I have a calculation to make, I reach for bc -l, not the GUI calculator.
(I did not put in any hyperlink today. If you are using Firefox, just highlight a word or phrase and choose Search Web for "..." from the right click menu.)
What are some of your favorite scripting languages.
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