Python and Ruby are probably the only popular ones that ship by default with unlimited precision integers.
For arbitrary precision reals in Python, there is mpmath http://mpmath.org/ . There is also the standard decimal module which "provides support for fast correctly-rounded decimal floating point arithmetic" : https://docs.python.org/3/library/decimal.html
Perl: https://perldoc.perl.org/bignum.html
Perl6: https://docs.perl6.org/language/math#Arithmetic
https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/integers-and-floatin...
If I remember correctly, Elixir uses arbitrary precision integers by default, though I'm not sure about float.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8676331/how-to-run-a-has...
GCC hash-bang is still an edit-compile-link-debug cycle. Just like with Python and Ruby, Haskell hash-bang accelerates the cycle by jettisoning the compile and linking steps.
The benefit of scripts is that each file is a self-contained single source of truth.
Python implements a caching scheme for .pyc files; maybe it's not a scripting language ...
If I were to venture an opinion on why C (in its usual implementations) is not a scripting language it would be:
- no interactive prompt (REPL).
- no reloading of code (other than clumsy, fragile, platform-specific shared lib mechanisms).
- no execution of "top level forms": a program's entry point is a specific function (main on hosted implementations). When, e.g., Lisp code is compiled, the effect of loading the compiled file is still the same as of the source file: the top-level forms (now in a compiled form) are executed one by one. (What's a "script"? A file with instructions to be run one by one.)
- no late binding; in fact, no program at all, unless all external references are satisfied. Scripting languages can run code that contains references to unknown global variables, or calls to unknown functions. These can be loaded late.
Fun fact: the SBCL implementation of Common Lisp actually adds a shebang to its compiled, binary Lisp files, so you can compile your Lisp script and then execute it from the shell.
$ cat > foo.tl
#!/usr/bin/txr
(pprinl "hello")
$ txr -e '(compile-file "foo")'
hello
$ cat foo.tlo
#!/usr/bin/txr
(5 0 nil)
((2 3 #b'0200012400000004 02000010' #("hello") #(usr:pprinl)))
You'd think SBCL wouldn't need this sort of thing since it compiles to native code?
Also, the buit-in Decimal class is horribly slow by comparison to gmpy2.
racket has exact numbers of unlimited size.
1. Most Lisp dialects, including Scheme and ANSI Lisp, have interactive modes for evaluating expressions.
2. Most Lisp dialects have a mode of processing files in the same manner: reading individual forms and evaluating them immediately. I.e. it is not necessary to translate files into objects that have to be linked to produce an executable program.