What does language is dynamic mean?

Answer 1

Computer programming languages change from generation to generation due to changes (advancements) in computer hardware. The general trend is languages are becoming more human-like as computer capabilities continue to improve.

Answer 2

Dynamic usually refers to "dynamic typing", which means that a variable is not restricted to a particular data type.

Consider the following:

Static typed (C):

int x = 5;

string y = "10";

int z = x + y;

printf("%i + %s = %i", x, y, z);

Dynamic typed (Perl):

$x = 5;

$y = "10";

$z = $x + $y;

print $x, ' + ', $y, ' = ', $z;

In the former code, with static (or strong) typing, the code will not run at all. You simply can not add a string to a number and come up with an answer, because they are completely different data types. Even worse, depending on the implementation, you might even come up with an error about accessing an illegal memory address, etc. To actually get the above code to run, you would have to use strtoi to force the string into a number before adding them together.

In the latter code, with dynamic typing, you get the perfectly reasonable statement "5 + 10 = 15". We didn't tell the language that we wanted to use the string as a number. It simply knew. Likewise, we didn't have to use formatting strings or any other fancy tricks.

Dynamic languages offer a sort of "DWIM" (Do What I Mean) approach, while static languages generally do not.

Answer 3

Usually, a powerful language will have a large library of classes, constants, methods (procedures that can be called on objects to manipulate them), etc.

Answer 4

Language isn't a static thing. It is always changing from generation to generation, situation to situation, and throughout life stages.