Updated May 8, 2023
Introduction to Is Python a Scripting Language?
Yes, Python is a scripting language.
It is also an interpreted and high-level programming language for the purpose of general programming requirements. It was designed and developed by the Software Developer named Guido van Rossum. It was first released in the year 1991. It is a dynamic type of discipline and also has strong typing. Filename extensions for python scripting language are of different types such as .py, .pyc, .pyd, .pyo, .pyw, .pyz. It is object-oriented, functional, procedural, reflective and imperative. It is being maintained and developed by the Python Software Foundation. It was mainly influenced by languages such as CoffeeScript, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Swift, and Groovy. It is also a multi-paradigm programming language. It has functional programming features which were inspired by the Lisp programming language. It also supports aspect-oriented programming.
Scripting Language
The scripting language is also a programming language that works on the basis of automating a repeated task that involves the same or similar type of steps while executing the procedure or program. This will help in reducing the time and human effort and thus reduces the costs further. Scripting languages need a separate runtime execution to execute the code. Scripting languages are normally interpreted rather than compiled. The different types of scripting languages are Python, JavaScript, Perl, Visual Basic, ECMAScript, Bash and Unix Shell Scripts etc.
The different features of Scripting languages are as below:
- Scripting languages run faster and easy to use
- It is easy to learn and develop the code if basic programming knowledge is there.
- The code can be easily developed as no separate IDEs are not required
- Minimal development environment set up is needed
- Many editors available to edit the code
- Good for automation tasks
- To enhance the automated tasks in server-side scripts
- Easier to automate the tasks in web servers to monitor the server functionalities
- Objects do exist similar to object-oriented languages like JavaScript
- It contains less code compared to traditional programming languages
- To extract the information from the large datasets
- Memory allocation is not required for the scripting languages to be run
Comparison with different other scripting languages
The different other Scripting languages include such as Perl, Unix, JavaScript, Visual Basic, ECMAScript, Bash, Shell Scripting, etc.; in Python scripting language, self-identifier is equivalent to this reference in Java programming language, which is used to refer to the object, whereas this reference will be used in JavaScript programming language also. In Python, a class is used to define the Class, which is similar in the remaining object-oriented languages, too, such as JavaScript, to define a class as per ES6 (ECMAScript – A standard for JavaScript programming language). The initial method which will be called while instantiating the object is __init__ whereas a default or declared Constructor would be called in the case of Java whereas, in the case of JavaScript, it is a prototype-based mechanism where the root or parent class object mechanism will be called or implemented as it has prototypal inheritance mechanism. Inheritance mechanism exists in Python, which is similar to that of other languages such as C++, Java etc. Python usually takes more time than Java, which results in the slower execution of the Python programs. It is easier to write Python programs than other Scripting Languages as the syntax is a bit easier and shorter to use in the programs. Python scripting language can also be integrated with different other Scripting Languages like Bash or shell Scripting to write the automated scripts to automate the monitoring tasks for the server applications.
Difference Between Scripting and Non-Scripting Languages
The Scripting languages have powerful features to develop faster automation applications, whereas Non-Scripting languages such as Java, C++, C etc. languages have limited features to relate with automated tasks in the applications.
- Scripting Languages are interpreted rather than compiled, whereas Non-Scripting languages are mostly compiled.
- Scripting Languages run slower compared to Non-Scripting Languages as they are interpreted but not compiled.
- Scripting languages need not be compiled, whereas Non-Scripting languages will be compiled into machine code.
- An interpreter will interpret scripting languages and be transformed into machine code by the interpreter itself.
- Scripting Languages are interpreter based whereas Non-Scripting Languages are complier based.
- Scripting Languages are used to integrate the existing systems or applications, whereas Non-Scripting Languages are used to develop the applications from scratch.
- Scripting Languages are run within another program or which are wrapped or encapsulated, whereas Non-Scripting Languages are run independently irrespective of the parent or external programs.
- Scripting Languages are interpreted line by line sequentially, whereas Non-Scripting Languages are compiled at a time in a single stretch.
- Scripting Languages take less time to code and configure the set up to run the program as they can be easily run with a single line of commands, whereas Non-Scripting Languages are needed to be configured to run after writing the code completely and requires series of sequential steps to execute the program.
- Scripting Languages require a host to run the scripts, whereas Non-Scripting Languages do not require any host but requires an application or web server to deploy the application to run, and few standalone applications can be run independently.
Conclusion
The Scripting language features in a programming language give the rich set of features and functionalities in developing scripts and complex automated tasks, enhance browser web applications, pop windows, alerts, dynamic functionalities etc., to enable and run the repeated and manual tasks in the current digital world with increasing data, applications and customers. Python scripting language can be used to develop a web application by using a framework called Django which will provide most of the implementations to ease the web development. There are several other frameworks that can be used along with Python to develop different kinds of applications for the different scenario-based requirements. Python also has different other features such as Functional, procedural, reflective, imperative etc., other than Object-Oriented features. Apart from OOP, Python provides other functionalities such as Networking, Web frameworks, Graphical User Interfaces, Databases, Automation etc.
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This has been a guide to Is Python a Scripting language. Here we have discussed the difference between Scripting and non-Scripting language features along with a comparison with different other scripting languages. You may also look at the following article to learn more –
