Dynamic Programming Languages

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Many developers are increasingly using dynamic languages, such as JavaScript, Perl, Python, and Ruby, to boost their effectiveness and productivity and perform complex jobs more quickly and easily, particularly as projects have become increasingly large and complex. Dynamic languages are not new. Languages such as APL and Lisp were developed in the late 1950s. There have been many since then—such as ABAP, Groovy, SAS, and Tcl—with several becoming very popular, as the table shows. The definitions of static and dynamic languages are given as follows:

• Static programming languages: Static-language programs have rigid code and logical structures and remain as they are unless the programmer changes them. Static languages generally are compiled, and they check typing in the compilation stage.


• Dynamic programming languages: A dynamic language basically enables programs that can change their code and logical structures at runtime, adding variable types, module names, classes, and functions as they are running. These languages frequently are interpreted and generally check typing at runtime.

Dynamic languages are flexible and can let developers write more to-the-point code quickly and easily. Despite the enthusiasm, dynamic languages have their drawbacks and concerns, including many developers' unfamiliarity with them. Moreover, computing has proven to be “a fashion industry with little or no relationship with engineering,” and many new programming approaches are “just something new to try before something newer comes along.”