General and Web Programming Fundamentals
  • Introduction
  • Program creation and design
    • Program design
      • Algorithms
      • Pseudocode
    • Programming conventions
    • Writing programs
      • Source code editors
      • Integrated Development Environments
      • Code repositories/Version control
      • Compilers/Interpreters
  • Programming Fundamentals
    • Operators
      • Arithmetic
      • Logical
      • Assignment
    • Constants and Variables
    • Datatypes
      • Primitive Datatypes
        • Character
        • Integer
        • Boolean
        • Floating point
        • Nothing (Null)
      • Composite Datatypes
        • Arrays
        • Strings
        • Classes
        • Structs
      • Literals
    • Data structures
      • Lists
      • Queues
      • Stacks
      • Map/dictionary
      • Trees
      • Graphs
    • Control structures
      • Selection (Conditional)
        • If/Else
        • Ternary
        • Switch
      • Iteration (Loops)
        • For loops
        • While loops
        • Do-While loops
        • For-Each loops
    • Functions
      • Parameters and arguments
      • Lambda expressions
      • Higher Order Functions
    • Space and Time
    • Scope
    • Standard libraries
  • Programming Paradigms
    • Procedural (Imperative) Programming
    • Object-oriented programming
    • Functional Programming
    • Declarative Programming
    • Event Driven programming
  • Programming Languages
    • Short history of programming
    • Low-level programming languages
    • High-level programming languages
  • Web Development
    • What is the web?
      • Web browsers (clients)
      • Webservers (serving web pages)
      • W3C
    • Markup languages
      • HTML
        • HTML Tags
      • Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
        • CSS Properties
      • XML
      • Markdown
    • Scripting Languages
      • JavaScript
      • TypeScript
    • JSON
    • JavaScript Frameworks
  • Acknowledgements
    • About the author(s)
  • License
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  • What Are Scripting Languages?
  • Brief History
  • Scripting for Operating Systems
  • Scripting for Web Development
  • Most Common Scripting Languages

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  1. Web Development

Scripting Languages

What Are Scripting Languages?

Scripting languages are programming languages designed for integrating and communicating with other programming languages. Unlike traditional programming languages that require compiling before execution, scripting languages are typically interpreted at runtime. They are widely used for automating tasks, manipulating files, and rapidly developing applications.

Brief History

Initially, scripting languages were developed for operating systems (OS) to automate routine tasks, such as file manipulation and job scheduling. The Unix OS, for example, introduced shell scripting with languages like sh (Bourne shell) and later, Bash (Bourne Again SHell). In the 1990s, the focus of scripting languages expanded to web development, leading to the creation of Perl for CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripting, which allowed dynamic content on web pages. JavaScript was then developed to enable interactive web pages, running client-side scripts directly in the browser. PHP followed, designed for server-side scripting to generate dynamic page content before the page was delivered to the user's web browser.

Scripting for Operating Systems

  • Bash: Widely used in Linux and UNIX systems for file management, program execution, and running commands.

  • PowerShell: Developed by Microsoft for task automation and configuration management, heavily utilized in Windows environments.

Scripting for Web Development

  • JavaScript: Essential for client-side scripting, enabling interactive web pages and web applications.

  • PHP: A server-side scripting language designed for web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language.

  • Python: Though a general-purpose language, it's widely used for server-side web development, especially with frameworks like Django and Flask.

Most Common Scripting Languages

  • Bash

  • PowerShell

  • Python

  • PHP

  • JavaScript

  • Perl

These languages have significantly shaped the automation of operating system tasks and the development of dynamic, interactive web applications.

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