For many applications where a scripted language really shines,
there are usually security related issues that require placing
strict limitations on what the scripts are allowed to do. You
have to understand that the scripts tend to be implemented by
the users of the system, rather than just the original
developers. Also code may be transmitted from one machine to
another and executed, so you have to be careful that malicious
code cannot do much harm.
I agree with your comment about larger projects that are
scripted. I think you'll tend to use large applications like
that in environments where the scripting provides little to no
advantages, and it becomes mostly a disadvantage in terms of
eating up resources for no good reason. I can see an advantage
for the developers, but the users of the application tends to
suffer, so if the application could later be compiled to native
machine code for distribution, that would close the gap.
--rt
But scripting languages still can do a lot of harm, even if they
are not as low level as C/C++ or D. But transmission is actually
an issue. Scripting languages are better for this purpose. My
point is that developers should think twice before using
scripting languages, because the disadvantages may sooner or
later outweigh the initial advantage of "ease of use" and "no
compilation time". A lot of cross-platform software is still
written in C and C++, not without a reason. What D can offer here
is modern (scripting like) convenience plus cross platform native
machine code.
