Jim Conner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Perl is NOT an interpreted language (such as the BASIC language I learned in
>>high school, many, many years ago).
>
>Just a minor correction (semantics only). Perl *is* an interpreted
>language where BASIC and C are compiled languages. I believe everyone,
>including myself, got the idea though. I just wanted to make clear the
>words used between the two.
>
>Interpreted meaning that the script/program is interpreted and compiled at
>run time by the compiler (the Perl binary) and then run. Whereas BASIC, C,
>C++, COBOL, FORTRAN, etc, etc are all compiled into machine language. At
>runtime the OS knows how to run the program and is therefore *not*
>interpreted but simply run.
Well, not quite. First incarnations of BASIC were interpreted, there was no
compiler for them so you couldn't do binary executable. As a matter of fact,
you could't know if BASIC program is syntax error free until interpreter
wasn't hit by offending piece of code(i.e. Locomotive BASIC on Amstrad
CPC464 ;-) ). On the other hand, Perl couldn't be referred as a interpreted
language[1] because he simply isn't. IMO, if we were into making an
appropriate term it would be more like "compile at runtime" language(like C
or any other with one downside? where compiling is done many times).
[1] by interpreted I mean "translated and executed line by line, by some
kind of program"
--
Matija
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