Why do we call python a scripting language?

[Phil Hunt]

In article <37c66347.518331 at news.netset.com> guy_oliver at yahoo.com  writes:
> Why do we call python a scripting language?  
> 
> For me, and for most of the people I try to tell about the benefits of
> python, the title 'scripting language' implies that its not a real
> language capable of real programs.  It implies to most of them that it
> is good for simple sysadmin and maybe short cgi scripts.
> 
> I usually simply call it an interpreted object oriented programming
> language, as this does not carry with it the implication that its not
> a real language that cant do anything.  
> 
> I usually see people grouping languages into the compiled languages,
> such as c, c++, java, ada, etc, as being the only languages viable for
> large projects, important projects.

Python and Java are the same in that they are both OO languages which 
are compiled into intermediate code which is then interpreted.

> Python, perl, tcl, and others are
> grouped into the section of scripting languages for web sites, etc.
> This is not the case, is it?

Indeed not. (Python *is* good for coding web sites -- that's one thing
I use it for -- but it's also good for lots of other stuff).

> I am not the only one that has used
> python for large projects, am I?   I hope not!  

-- 
Phil Hunt....philh at vision25.demon.co.uk