Script Languages
Programming is usually referred to heavy-duty coding (i.e. fulltime programmer) in a particular system language like C/C++. Scripting code is referred as stitching or interpreter language. It can "glue" all codes between various environments, tools and languages. This view is no longer true in today programming environment. Scripting can be a full-blown programming code. One can say that the difference between scripting code and "source code" is that source code needs to be compiled into executable code before execution while scripting code can be called and executed directly. Scripting languages are more productive while conventional languages arc faster. In general, scripting languages are not designed to create applications from scratch.
During the internet explosion in 1990-1995, there were a slew of newly-introduced and competing scripting languages (Linux, Python, PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, etc..) during this time. Above graph is a rough introduction time frame of various scripting languages and the major version releases. Unix and Awk development happened the earliest in 1970's. The first release of Tel and Tk started in 1988 ad 1990, respectively; and the major release of Tel/Tk version 8.1 was in 1999. The first release of Perl code started in 1987 and the next major release of Perl Version 5.0 in 1995. Ruby started in Japan in 1993 and the major version release in the US was in 2001. Python starts in 1991 in Europe and the major version release was in 1995.
Scripting languages have become incredibly popular. Everyone has his/her own favorite scripting language. A single scripting language to make everyone happy is out of the question. There are constant "language wars" of words between the competing languages. To be the king of the scripting language, a scripting language is not only to be technically "superior" but it must survive the hype, gain the momentum from the programmer community mass, and most of all satisfy the economics of a programming language. In practice, few of us have freedom to choose which languages to work on because most of us are subjected to our own group working environment.
To be sufficient in programming in the EDA chip design environment requires the knowledge of several scripting languages like Unix, Tel, Perl, Python, Ruby and etc.
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