system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why are script languages mostly interpreted rather than compiled?
gpt
First, it's somewhat in the definition of "script language", if they were compiled, they'd likely not be considered a "script language."

Not compiling makes it easier to use and maintain them (no separate source and binary) and makes it easier to port them to other machines. These are all important for the common uses of scripts. (It also makes it much easier to implement `eval`.)

That said, the line isn't clear-cut at all. Python can (and often does) compile scripts to a bytecode form for faster execution.