What Is a Scripting Language?

A scripting language is a programming language mainly written for a runtime system where the compilation step is not needed to execute a series of commands. 

Scripting languages use a program called an interpreter to translate commands which are then directly interpreted from the source code. On the other hand, a non-scripting language would require a program, called a compiler, to translate the commands into machine code to execute them. 

Some popular examples of scripting languages are Node.js, Python and Ruby. A scripting Language is created to integrate and communicate with other programming languages.

Advantages of Scripting Languages

Straightforward Functionality 

Scripting languages are known to be very simple to use.

High Efficiency

Scripting languages consist of a limited number of variables and data structures that help users edit at a faster pace.

High Accessibility

Users across the globe can use scripting languages as they are open source.

Low Storage Needs 

As mentioned earlier, scripting languages do not require a compiler. Therefore, they use a low amount of memory since an executable file is not needed to be stored.

Types of Scripting Languages

The two types of scripting languages that exist are server-side scripting and client-side scripting. The only major difference between the two is the need for a server for the processing required by server-side scripting languages.

Server-side scripting languages run on a web server. These languages offer special libraries to create HTML pages.

Instead of running on a web server like the server-side scripting languages, client-side scripting languages run on the user’s browser. The code received by the client from the server is processed to generate dynamic content.