>>>>> "BR" == Bob Rogers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
BR> From: Uri Guttman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> BR> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:18:07 -0400 BR> . . . perl is both an interpreter and compiler. this is a common BR> statement but what does it mean? why are somethings only an BR> interpreter or compiler? why is script used when perl is a BR> programming language? BR> Lisp goes even farther down the road of blurring the boundary between BR> interpreter and compiler than Perl does. You can even run code at read BR> time, when the program is being parsed by the compiler (or interpreter). BR> Some people aren't aware that Lisp is primarily a compiled language BR> (which I bet is also true for Perl). Even so, nobody thinks Lisp is a BR> "scripting language." Go figure. well perl does that too with BEGIN and eval. BEGIN blocks are executed during the compile phase as soon as they are parsed successfully. and eval compiles code at run time. so you can run or compile code in either phase at will. not much diff than lisp. as we discussed in the meeting, the term scripting came from writing/editing a 'script' of shell commands instead of typing them in to the shell over and over. many early perl programs were small and replaced shell scripts so the term perl scripts came into being. lisp is much older than shell and i bet no one has ever written a lisp 'script' to replace a shell script! :) uri -- Uri Guttman ------ [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------- http://www.sysarch.com -- ----- Perl Code Review , Architecture, Development, Training, Support ------ --------- Free Perl Training --- http://perlhunter.com/college.html --------- --------- Gourmet Hot Cocoa Mix ---- http://bestfriendscocoa.com --------- _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list [email protected] http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
