Thanks to Geoff Eldridge for
this link.
In this article, Tim O’Reilly talks about scripting languages in
a highly positive manner.
“‘Openness’ is another favorite quality for O’Reilly. ‘Once you
start thinking of computer source code as a human language, you see
open source as a variety of ‘free speech.’ Free speech is not just
a political ideal. It is the currency of science and of western
civilization. It is a truism in the Western academic tradition
dating back to the Renaissance that exposure to criticism and
dialogue are the surest ways to refine ideas,’ O’Reilly said.”
“O’Reilly recognizes that scripting is often dismissed as ‘quick
and dirty stuff that is somehow less significant then the
programming behind compiled commercial applications.’ Rather than
fighting this aspersion, he inverts it, and explains that scripting
is simply ‘closer to what people need…Most speech is
extemporaneous, not prepared. Conversation would be pretty stilted
if everything one said was prepared, formal speech.’ Scripting is
an extension of speech which powerfully matches the way people
really learn and accomplish what they want when relating to
computers.”