Language-agnostic programming or scripting (also called language-neutral, language-independent, or cross-language) is a software paradigm in which no particular language is promoted.
In introductory instruction, the term refers to teaching principles rather than language features. For example, a textbook such as Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs is really a language-agnostic book about programming, and is not about programming in Scheme, per se.
As a development methodology, the concept suggests that a particular language should be chosen because of its appropriateness for a particular task (taking into consideration all factors, including ecosystem, developer skill-sets, performance, etc.), and not purely because of the skill-set available within a development team. For example, a language agnostic Java development team might choose to use Ruby or Perl for some development work, where Ruby or Perl would be more appropriate than Java.
"Cross-Language" in programming and scripting describes a program in which two or more languages are used to good effect within a program's code, with each contributing its distinctive benefits.
Related terms
- Language-independent specification
- Cross-language information retrieval, referring to natural languages, not programming languages
- Language independent datatypes
See also
- Bilingual (disambiguation)
- Language-independent (disambiguation)
- Glue language
- Language binding
- Middleware
- Polyglot (computing)
References
- "Free Programming Books By Subject / Programming". EbookFoundation.
- "The Challenge of Cross-language Interoperability - ACM Queue". queue.acm.org.