The JavaScript interpreter is built into all popular browsers. That’s why any browser understands what a script in this language is. These codes are successfully executed the moment the user accesses the pages of the site. But these same scripts can also run successfully on the server if it has a JavaScript interpreter installed. Scripts can be executed either on the client side, in the browser, or directly on the server.
Scripts have the following purposes:
- SEO scripts (templates) to promote websites. Usually under their control are specialized programs to automate this process. The most famous are ZennoPoster, Human Emulator;
- systems for collecting statistics of visits (attendance counters). These scripts are most often created using JavaScript;
- scripts for accessing databases. Here the leading language is PHP;
- scripts for guestbooks and post comments. Most often a combination of PHP and JavaScript is used;
- scripts for the dynamic display of sites. In this case, the scripting language is determined by the writing language of the CMS;
- scripts for changing a part of the site page without reloading it. The implementation uses Ajax technology. In this case, asynchronous JavaScript and XML come to the fore. The web application communicates with the server in the “background” so that changes to the pages of the site happen without a complete reboot. Users usually do not notice these changes, and they do not need to understand the scripting programming language to interact with the site perfectly.
The benefits of scripts
- Their use makes it possible to make programmatic changes without fear of destroying the entire system. If the script is written with errors, when it is executed, they will be issued as a result. In this case, the site will remain functional.
- Using scripts makes it possible to get a problem-oriented set of commands. In this case, a single line of scripting allows you to perform the same amount of actions as a program of many dozens of lines in a compiled language. This example clearly shows what a script is in programming and how much faster its use speeds up problem solving.
- Cross-platform execution of tasks is successfully implemented using scripts. An excellent example is JavaScript – the same scripts in this language can be executed by browsers in different operating systems without any problems.
The disadvantages of scripts
- Markedly longer execution time. In almost all cases, interpreted scripts require much more time and computer resources to run.
- There is no high-quality IDE-level development environment for such languages yet.
- Insufficient funds are invested in the promotion and advertising of these languages. Paradoxically, the relative availability and conditional free-of-charge of scripting languages leads to the fact that developers simply do not have enough money for marketing and advertising. Therefore, for many big-money projects, Java or C# are chosen.
