From: ldo@nz.invalid   
      
   On Sun, 18 Jan 2026 17:06:35 +0100, LC's No-Spam Newsreading account   
   wrote:   
      
   > One had OS-dependent scripting at least as far as early 1980s.   
      
   In those days, “scripting” meant “interpreted”, which in turn meant   
   “slow”. Perl managed to break the mould by compiling to an   
   intermediate byte-code form, which made it fast enough to be a real   
   productivity booster for many common quick-and-dirty programming   
   tasks.   
      
   I would point to Perl as the start of the wave of “metaprogramming”   
   languages (by which he meant “very-high-level” languages) that Fred   
   Brooks predicted in the final edition of his classic book “The   
   Mythical Man-Month”.   
      
   His own proposed example, AppleScript, is probably best forgotten.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)