1. An overview of scripting languages Alexander Kanavin Teachers: Barbara Miraftabi, Jan Voracek

2. What are scripting languages? Interpreted, never compiled Automatic memory handling High-level data types: lists, associative arrays Can access modules written in lower- level languages (C, C++) Most important: allow to treat code as data and vice versa

3. Application areas Command scripting languages Application scripting languages Markup languages Universal scripting languages

4. Command scripting Control execution of programs and tasks Shell language is the prime example

5. Application scripting languages End-user application programming Visual Basic for Applications Emphasis on user interface and components embedding JavaScript

6. Markup languages Tags in text give instructions to the markup language processor TeX HTML XML

7. Universal scripting languages Perl Python Tcl Second wave: web services (PHP)

8. Why are they important? C and C++ do not manage memory Allow to ’glue’ components together Allow fast prototyping (no compilation) Reduce complexity by allowing the use of the most appropriate tools for each subtask Estimate: development is 5 times faster than C

9. The future Decline in use of C and C++ An increasing use of dynamic languages Commercial software development: no compile needed, development and testing is simplified Scripting languages are likely to become extremely important