Scripting languages spark new programming era [Video]

Newfangled development platforms are dominating the Web. Take a tour of the options

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The era of scripting languages is opening up programming to the masses and extending the Web as an application platform.

Even the traditional Java and Microsoft languages have had to make room for scripting languages, which offer developers a quick way to build Web applications and have gained multitudes of adherents. Indeed, programming technology powerhouses Microsoft and Sun both cite their own accommodations for these languages: Sun has opened up the Java Virtual Machine to support scripting languages, and Microsoft offers .Net-based versions of the Ruby and Python languages.

[ Read Paul Krill’s Q&A with Mozilla’s Brendan Eich on the new version of JavaScript, disputes with Microsoft, and the language’s path to the present. ]

There are numerous scripting languages, also called dynamic languages because they are interpreted and compiled at runtime. But a handful of them come to …