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Built-in scripting languages can help you automate or customize a program, but what if you use a program that doesn’t include a scripting language? Or what if you need to transfer data between two or more programs, but neither program uses the same scripting language? In these cases, you’ll need to use a scripting language that isn’t tied to any particular program, such as JavaScript, Perl, Python, or Ruby.

When scripting languages link two or more programs together, the scripting language programs are often referred to as glue. So, if you have a web page that lets users type in their names, addresses, and credit card numbers, and a database program that stores customer information, you could use a scripting program to glue the web page to the database. The user would type information into the web page, and the scripting language would then yank this data off the web page and shove it into the database.

By gluing programs together, scripting languages let you combine existing programs to create custom applications. Because scripting languages are interpreted rather than compiled, they can run on any computer with the proper language interpreter. So, whether you use Linux, macOS, or Windows, you can still use the same scripting language (and programs) on different computers.