User:Toussaint/scripting markup language


 * Note: this is an essay

A scripting markup language is a markup language that, like its programming-based counterpart, allows some control of a single or many document(s) or software application(s). Scripting markup languages, unlike scripting languages like JavaScript, are not (yet) externally-useable as standalone external scripts, but are otherwise embeddable within markup languages such as HTML and SVG; furthermore, as SVG is externally useable through the, SMIL also serves an indirect external purpose to the HTML document.

It is possible that such languages as SMIL may become externally useable in form for HTML pages in the future, with greater control over the user interface behavior definitions which were previously determined by programmatically-defined scripts; this may make it more useable as a multi-document control method as well.

Scripting markup languages can potentially be used for most of the uses already accorded to most scripting languages:


 * Job control languages and shells
 * GUI Scripting
 * Application-specific languages
 * Web browsers
 * Web servers
 * Text processing languages