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   Ned Batchelder (nedbat@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jan-2024 15:13:16 JST Ned Batchelder

   A common #python question: what's the difference between a script and a program?

   - A program is something you've put some thought into.
   - A script is something you didn't think you had to put any thought into.

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     DamonHD (damonhd@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 21:27:56 JST DamonHD

     in reply to

     • Greg Glockner

     @gglockner @nedbat Just the one? And for how many years after you left? %-P

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     Greg Glockner (gglockner@social.seattle.wa.us)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 21:27:57 JST Greg Glockner

     in reply to

     @nedbat What about the throwaway script one wrote that is now in production, powering some critical service? Asking for a friend. 😉

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     Stacy (sknashville@theatl.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 21:28:01 JST Stacy

     in reply to

     • Ryan

     @yantor3d @nedbat - half of my career has been reverse engineering other people’s work, then mercilessly removing it.

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     Ryan (yantor3d@mograph.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 21:28:05 JST Ryan

     in reply to

     @nedbat A script *is a* temporary fix that the entire project/business relies on and is saved on someone's desktop.

     A program *has a* temporary fix that the entire project/business relies on and was labeled "TODO: Fix" by someone who left the company years ago.

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     Panicz Maciej Godek (paniczgodek@functional.cafe)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 21:28:09 JST Panicz Maciej Godek

     in reply to

     @nedbat

     I think of a script as a program that only automates what would otherwise be manual interactions of a human operator with the computer (so it does not create any - or many - new layers of representations)

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 21:28:11 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Albert ARIBAUD Ⓜ

     @aaribaud @nedbat Etymology can help you understand why a word means what it means, but it can never give you a definite meaning of a word, as a word is created with some meaning in mind the moment it is coined, and keeps acquiring meaning for as long as it lives.

     That's why there's a difference between a butt dial and a booty call.

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     Albert ARIBAUD Ⓜ (aaribaud@piaille.fr)'s status on Sunday, 10-Mar-2024 21:28:13 JST Albert ARIBAUD Ⓜ

     in reply to

     @nedbat Luckily, etymology comes to the rescue.

     - program: from the greek pro (before) and gramma/graphein (write), meaning "written before".

     - script: from the latin scriptum/scribere, meaning "written".

     So... Basically the same unless someone decides they should bear different meanings because opinion.

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 00:24:09 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Bill Taroli :neurodiversity:

     @btaroli @nedbat Some people are gatekeepers and treat script programming vs application programming as toy programming vs real programming.

     The person who made the most effort to define a difference between the two though, John Osterhout, found script programming so important that he created Tcl to be a language good enough for general-purpose programming with control flow and abstractions, but with features and design choices to make the language particularly suited to script programming.

     #Tcl #TclTk

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     Bill Taroli :neurodiversity: (btaroli@federate.social)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 00:24:11 JST Bill Taroli :neurodiversity:

     in reply to

     @nedbat it’s a caste system of programming, that presupposes your thing matters more if you had to compile it. #scripting #programming