DevSource: If there were one core thing you could change about scripting languages, what would it be?

Pall: Even though popular scripting languages such as Python, Perl, Tcl, PHP, Javascript are all very high-level languages, they are all based on an text based idiom. All code is represented textually, which maps to raw bytes interpreted most commonly as ASCII, separated by newlines. This is a fundamentally expensive format since errors are all too easy to make. A single character misplaced or removed can alter the interpretation or compilation of the script, rendering programmer intent moot. Representing code as abstract syntax trees and not streams of characters is central to huge advances in programmer efficiency and simplicity.

Conway: If I could change one thing it would be the misperception that these languages are toys; that they're not suitable for "serious" development. There is any amount of evidence to the contrary:

• http://perl.oreilly.com/news/success_stories.html
• http://perl.apache.org/outstanding/success_stories/

But the stereotype persists, and it keeps too many programmers from being able to use these extraordinary tools that would make their jobs easier, and their products better.

Van Rossum: Python could really use some loving attention from the folks who currently develop highly optimized JIT compilers for languages like Java. If the same effort were poured into speeding up Python as Sun devoted to Java, Python would be better than Java in every respect.

Thomas: The name. They are called scripting languages because their original use was to replace shell scripts and batch files in system administration tasks. That's why Perl was written. But they've moved well beyond that now. Ruby, for example, is one of a very few pure object-oriented languages. It's a sophisticated tool. Ruby is used to write large, complex, and adaptable enterprise applications. That's light-years away from writing a quick script to archive some log files.

Hobbs: I lament the marketing state of dynamic languages, but that's not really a "core thing." In truth though, I would think of such external characteristics first. One of the reasons we focus on calling them "dynamic" instead of "scripting" languages now is to try and garner the respect they rightly deserve. Dynamic languages are not necessarily the end-all-be-all solution for all programming tasks, but neither are systems languages, although a lot of their marketing would try to convince you otherwise.

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