We all know programming language is a computer language that is used by programmers (developers) to communicate with computers. Have you heard of ‘scripting languages’?

Scripting languages are also computer languages, but are mostly interpreter-based. It uses a high-level construct to interpret and execute one command at a time.

Example of Programming Language: C, C++, Java, Scala

Example of Scripting Language: PHP, JavaScript, Python, VBScript

The basic difference is that all the scripting languages are programming languages, but all programming languages are not scripting languages. The scripting languages do not require the compilation step. On the other hand, programming languages need to be complied to machine code so as to run them on the hardware of an underlying OS. 

This will give you a detailed comparison of these two types of computer languages to understand them better: Scripting Vs Programming languages

Features	Scripting Language	Programming Language
Type	Interpreter-based languages.	Compiler-based languages
Use	Used to create dynamic web applications	Used to write computer programs
Running of Language	Program-dependent	Program-independent
Conversion	Convert high-level instructions into machine language	Convert the full program into the machine language in one go
Maintenance & Cost	Less maintenance cost	High maintenance cost
File Type	Don’t create any file types	Generates a .exe file
Complexity	Easy to use and easy to write.	Pretty complex in terms of writing and usage.
Code	Very few and short coding lines	Require numerous lines of coding for a single function
Support	Great support to user interface design, data types, and graphic design	Do not support or provide very little support for user interface designing, data types, and graphic designing
Development time	Limited as smaller number of lines are required	High as more lines are required

Conclusion: Scripting Vs Programming Languages

Execution process and environment is the deciding factor between these two type of computer languages. Programming languages are used to make software, whereas scripting languages were created to assist and guide these programming languages. Scripting languages are mainly used to define functionality. Both programming and scripting language have advancements and improved features in them.