3 ms·

The thread was specifically about usage as a glue and extension language.

by 59nadir 10y ago

coldtea 10y ago
I don't know what definition you have for a "glue language" but being a glue language is NOT the same as an "extension" language, nor is it about being embedded (e.g. like Lua inside another program). From Python.org itself, written by Guido Van Rossum: Glue It All Together With Python - Python is an advanced scripting language that is being used successfully to glue together large software components. It spans multiple platforms, middleware products, and application domains. And from Wikipedia, for the traditional definition as I've known for decades: Glue languages: Scripting is often contrasted with system programming, as in Ousterhout's dichotomy or "programming in the large and programming in the small". In this view, scripting is particularly glue code, connecting software components, and a language specialized for this purpose is a glue language. Pipelines and shell scripting are archetypal examples of glue languages, and Perl was initially developed to fill this same role. Web development can be considered a use of glue languages, interfacing between a database and web server. But if a substantial amount of logic is written in script, it is better characterized as simply another software component, not "glue". Glue languages are especially useful for writing and maintaining: - custom commands for a command shell; - smaller programs than those that are better implemented in a compiled language; - "wrapper" programs for executables, like a batch file that moves or manipulates files and does other things with the operating system before or after running an application like a word processor, spreadsheet, data base, assembler, compiler, etc.; - scripts that may change; - rapid prototypes of a solution eventually implemented in another, usually compiled, language.

3 ms·

The thread was specifically about usage as a glue and extension language.

by 59nadir 10y ago

The thread was specifically about usage as a glue and extension language.

coldtea 10y ago
I don't know what definition you have for a "glue language" but being a glue language is NOT the same as an "extension" language, nor is it about being embedded (e.g. like Lua inside another program). From Python.org itself, written by Guido Van Rossum: Glue It All Together With Python - Python is an advanced scripting language that is being used successfully to glue together large software components. It spans multiple platforms, middleware products, and application domains. And from Wikipedia, for the traditional definition as I've known for decades: Glue languages: Scripting is often contrasted with system programming, as in Ousterhout's dichotomy or "programming in the large and programming in the small". In this view, scripting is particularly glue code, connecting software components, and a language specialized for this purpose is a glue language. Pipelines and shell scripting are archetypal examples of glue languages, and Perl was initially developed to fill this same role. Web development can be considered a use of glue languages, interfacing between a database and web server. But if a substantial amount of logic is written in script, it is better characterized as simply another software component, not "glue". Glue languages are especially useful for writing and maintaining: - custom commands for a command shell; - smaller programs than those that are better implemented in a compiled language; - "wrapper" programs for executables, like a batch file that moves or manipulates files and does other things with the operating system before or after running an application like a word processor, spreadsheet, data base, assembler, compiler, etc.; - scripts that may change; - rapid prototypes of a solution eventually implemented in another, usually compiled, language.