Re: Definition of service, daemon, script, program and process

From: Jan Braun <janbraun_at_gmx.de>
Date: Tue, 19 May 2026 19:58:51 +0200

Steve Litt schrob:
> I've heard the term "script" used many different ways. [...]
> although these days with Just In Time compilation,
> "interpreted language" is a fuzzy term. On a personal level, I view
> this as a distinction lacking a difference: One can perform almost any
> task (perhaps very badly) from either bash or C. I personally call all
> of them "programs".

My definition is:

If I can read the output of "cat `which foo`", then foo is a script,
else it's a binary program.

And the meaningful-to-me difference is that I can simply rsync a script
to any other machine. For binaries, that won't be useful unless the
machines involved share their architecture (and libc).

Hence I have a few C scripts. They start with #!/usr/bin/tcc -run

cheers,
    Jan

Received on Tue May 19 2026 - 19:58:51 CEST

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