<p>What is the best compilable scripting language for Win32?  I prefer .EXE's because I don't want to install the runtime on the servers first (my company administrates many via remote), but I need to be able to do things like NTFS permissions and (if possible) APIs over the network.</p>

<p>There was a small Perl which appeared to be able to do most of this, but it does not seem to have been updated/developed in quite a while.  I have wondered about Lua, but I don't know if it has everything I need yet (and don't want to hunt through fifty library sites trying to find out).  Any thoughts?</p>

[{'answer_id': 79622, 'author': 'Swaroop C H', 'author_id': 4869, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4869', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>Have you considered using an EXE maker? For example, you can code in Python and use <a href="http://www.py2exe.org" rel="noreferrer">py2exe</a> to create a standalone EXE that runs anywhere (it actually packages Python into the exe, so you don\'t have to install the runtime).</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 79625, 'author': 'Thomas', 'author_id': 14637, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/14637', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>A scripting language is, almost by definition, not compiled into a standalone executable. So maybe you need to restate your intentions or give some indication about what kind of program you want to create.</p>\n\n<p>C# is a powerful language that compiles to .EXE and allows you to interface with pretty much anything (through native p/invoke calls, if necessary). A basic but very usable Visual Studio for C# can be downloaded for free from the Microsoft website. The .NET runtime is installed on most systems nowadays.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 79653, 'author': 'Antti Kissaniemi', 'author_id': 2948, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2948', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Ruby is my scripting language of choice.</p>\n\n<p>Try <a href="http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubyscript2exe/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RubyScript2Exe</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 79818, 'author': 'VonC', 'author_id': 6309, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/6309', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Did you consider <a href="http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AutoIt</a> ?</p>\n\n<p>It is a scripting language, and you can quickly transform a script into an exe...</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 79849, 'author': 'Rob Hansen', 'author_id': 14928, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/14928', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>At OSCON 2005, I heard Damien Conway say "the only thing better than Perl is something that works well, even if it\'s not written in Perl."</p>\n\n<p>It\'s good advice.  Instead of looking for the <i>best</i> language that can be compiled to an .EXE, worry a lot more about writing it in <i>a</i> language that can be compiled to an .EXE.  Use whatever works.  Just remember that the quality of your programming matters infinitely more than what language you use.</p>\n\n<p>That said, I like py2exe.  YMMV.  Good luck!</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/79582', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/14429/']