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Comment by BoppreH | Hacker News Reader

I honestly didn't expect a downvote for calling Python a "scripting language". I use the term loosely and always thought Python fit spot on. I still think it applies here, but I've edited the parent post to correct this possibly incorrect usage of the word.

Just for the record, these are the characteristics of Python that made me call it "scripting":

- Interpreted

- Highly expressive

- No boilerplate

- Vast majority of programs are short

- Lots of libraries for gluing stuff together

- Used for turing-complete customization of software in other languages (e.g.: Sublime Text)

- Recommended as replacement for Bash in some cases

Anyway, I'm happy to see the language evolving to meet its users' needs.

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Stolen from https://www.python.org/doc/humor/ (in response to a claim that it's not a true OO language):

> Indeed, and because it doesn't support closures, it's not a true functional programming language either. And because you have to import all sorts of modules to do the simplest things (e.g., regular expressions), neither is it a true scripting language. Indeed, because it doesn't support labeled break or continue statements, it's not even a true structured programming language.

I think the point is, trying to classify programming languages (except domain specific ones like SQL or maybe PHP) is kind of pointless.

But to answer your real question, Python is one of the top languages in number crunching. After web work, that's Python's second biggest niche.

> it doesn't support closures

It does now, and thank goodness, because even C++ has closures these days.

I believe that the common usage of python has switched away from "scripting usage" - it's now generally used to implement stuff, not glue stuff together or replace bash, and the vast majority of programs isn't short anymore.

It can be used as a scripting language, but that doesn't seem to be the main use-case anymore.

No offense intended. I just have a slightly different understanding of a "scripting language": a — often domain-specific — language that is merely used to write small scripts/macros. But anyway, I did not want to start a discussion about that. Sorry for that.

The standard implementation of Python is compiled to bytecode, like most modern mainstream languages, not interpreted.

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