Is Ruby a scripting language or an interpreted language?

Question

I just noticed that in the wikipedia page of Ruby, this language is defined as interpreted language.
I understood that probably there's something missing in my background.
I have always known the difference between an interpreted language that doesn't need a compiler and a compiled language (who require to be compiled before the execution of programs), but what characterize a scripting language ?
Is Ruby definable as a scripting language ?

Thank you and forgive me for the black out

Solution 1

Yes.

Detailed response:

A scripting language is typically used to control applications that are often not written in this language. For example, shell scripts etc. can call arbitrary console applications.

Ruby is a general purpose dynamic language that is frequently used for scripting.

You can make arbitrary system calls using backtick notation like below.

`<system command>`

There are also many excellent Ruby gems such as Watir and RAutomation for automating web and native GUIs.

For definition of scripting language, see here.

Solution 2

The term 'scripting language' is very broad, and it can include both interpreted and compiled languages. Ruby in particular, might compiled or interpreted depending on what particular implementation we're using - for instance, JRuby gets compiled to bytecode, whereas CRuby (Ruby's reference implementation) is interpreted