VBScript Programmer's Reference, Third Edition

Chapter 17. Script Encoding

One thing that becomes immediately obvious to those who write script coming from a programming background is that anything they create using script is easily and readily visible to anyone and everyone else. You have no compiler to turn the code into something that only a machine can make sense of. This easily visible code was a real worry, but on the whole it didn't stop people from writing and using scripts, who saw massive advantages in scripting. Just as the open, plain-text nature of HTML made learning web design easier than say learning C#, the same "open book" format for scripts encouraged a huge explosion of script use on the Web. Thinking back to those times, some of it was pretty bad and looked ugly, but we didn't care because it was scripting and it made pages look more exciting than the others out there. Because it was so easy to see how scripts worked (and to copy the code from one page and paste it into another), the future of scripting was guaranteed.

But now the future of script use is well established and a bit of privacy isn't a bad thing. Programmers who use script want to regain some of the mystique that they once had using C# or VB (using script to solve a problem is a bit like a magician in a see-through jacket). Things have moved on a little bit from the days of scripts being a total free-for-all and you can do a few things to make it harder for script snoopers to see your secrets! Protecting your scripts is much more than just protecting ...