Since last few decades technology has been revolutionized. Gradually, many programming languages with updated and improved functionalities started to come into the market. Competing with each other, these languages also improved their structure, syntax and kept on introducing new characteristics. Here in this article, we will be Comparing the Two Most Popular Programming Languages. After that, we will conclude that what characteristics make one of the languages better than the other.
JAVA
Java is one of the most used programming languages and is almost used in the majority of the electronic devices. The Java was developed to write platform-independent codes and that is the reason it got this much of fame. Java is a statically typed language and a general-purpose language. It is a purely object-oriented language and requires Java Virtual Machine to run and execute its programs.
Python:
Python is a dynamically typed language and a general-purpose language. All it started at a research lab in the Netherlands. It was expected to bridge a gap between the C language and the Linux shell. Back in the early times, it was very difficult to write a system administrative utility was a matter of great headache. Another goal of developing python was to make its code look more readable and cleaner. However, it was also inspired by many other languages like Algol68, PASCAL, etc.
People took a great interest in learning both of these languages. They really enjoyed the advanced features that came separately with each of the languages. It was now very easy for people to learn how to code with the help of these latest languages. As in the beginning when only C and C++ were used as a programming language, the programmers had to put more effort. They produced lesser code and that code also contained a lot of bugs and errors. With the help of these languages, the programmers began to write more efficient and error-free code with lesser time.
Python vs Java:
As we have discussed how these languages have made programming much easier, therefore depending upon their characteristics, we will make a comparison of their key differences.
Performance:
If we specifically talk about the speed of the programming languages, then we can not tell which language is faster unless we specify what the logic that was applied was. Programming languages just have the semantics. Which means we can only make comparisons for the specific implementation of the piece of code written.
One thing that must have to be kept in mind is that performance is measured with the program’s implementation. The execution time required and the third-party libraries that are being used within the program too.
Popularity:
Popularity is something that is very important to compare when it comes to the race between programming languages. Both Java and Python have been quite popular among the group of programmers from the very first day of their releases. Java was the most popular language just before the release of Javascript. Javascript was a scripting language that was released with a name close to java to make a good competition. However, it ranked out to the top level just because of its features and the programming power that came with javascript.
However, if we make a comparison between Java and Python, as java was released way before python, it was more popular than that of java. But according to the Stack overflow’s 2018 developers survey, it has been found that python is the fastest growing language. Python has a number of other competitors to compete with including C# and PHP however it is still above both of them
According to the report by GitHub, java was the second most used language after Javascript followed by Python. So, java is still more popular than Python being used by 45% of the total developers. After Java, comes the Python with popularity among 39% of the developers. However, the gap is gradually closing. One must say that there is a great rush between both python and java. Python seems to narrow down the gap between both of them.
Syntax:
Python is a dynamically typed language. Which means that the variable types are not specified while declaring the variables? The types of the variables are automatically detected at the compile time and all the checks have been implemented there. As a result, the syntax of the python becomes easier and is more similar to the English language that makes it easier to read and understand.
The other most unique thing with the syntax of python is that it does not have any closing and opening braces. The structure of the code is maintained by using the proper indentation making code more similar to that of simple pseudo code. These are some of the features that make python simpler to learn for the beginners.
In the case of Java, Java is a strongly typed language. Which means that it follows the strict rules to compile the code? All of the data types have to be defined before the declaration of a variable. That is why Java is also called statically typed language. If there is an anomaly, the JIT compiler refuses to compile the code. It is a bit tricky and difficult for beginners to get started with Java. However, some of them do find themselves more comfortable with the statically typed nature of Java.
Applications:
Previously, we have discussed the key differences. Now we will make a comparison of the uses and applications of both Java and Python.
Web Applications:
If we talk about the development of web-based applications, then both of these languages python and java are used as a back end programming language. By the back end, it means developing such applications that run on the server. Backend Development is actually a branch of web development in which web applications are developed that are to be deployed to some kind of web server. According to StackOverflow’s developer survey, Backend Development is the most popular development field.
One of the main issues with back end development is writing your own code all from scratch. Also, it is a challenge for the programmer to cover all the design requirements. As the designs are usually created by the designers with minimal or limited development of technical knowledge. Therefore, it is quite a challenge for the back-end developers to keep up the structure of the website.
To help themselves with this kind of situations, developers have created frameworks for themselves. Frameworks are as the name suggests the abstraction in the software that makes the development process a lot easier.
Popular Frameworks:
The most popular Frameworks to work with Python are Django and Flask. Flask is a micro web framework that gives you the basic functionalities like routing requests with minimal overhead etc. this is why it is not used. However, Django Being more featured one helps the developers in all kind of development including powerful backend development. With great efficiency and it also helps you produce securer piece of code. Also, you can deal with the databases and the structured data with Django as well.
In the case of Java, Java Spring is the most known java framework used for backend development. A huge community is using spring and java has a widely spread eco-system. This framework is used by some of the top enterprise companies like DELL, GE, Orange, and many others. however, Django is getting more popular and is used by most of the people nowadays for back-end development.
Machine Learning:
Machine Learning has been the very important field of Artificial Intelligence and a lot of contribution has already been made to it. Python is a fully-fledged general purpose programming language and syntactically very strong. That is the reason it is used by most of the programmers for whatever disciplines they are expert in. for the developers and programmers who were working on machine learning and artificial intelligence, they had great importance of python. They started using python as the source language for machine learning.
In the case of Java, it has also played a prominent part in machine learning. Because it’s easy to debug feature and easy to use, along with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, it has been also used for many other large-scale level enterprise level application developments. Java has provided many libraries to be used for machine learning including Weka, MOA, Mallet, and DeepLearning4.
Reasons Why Python is becoming more popular in 2019:
Now that we have made a comparison between Python and Java, now we will discuss what are the factors and the reasons that Python is becoming more popular in 2019. Previously we have discussed some of the key features like user-friendly syntax, easy to write and easy to learn. Here in this part, we will take a deeper look into those features and conclude that why you should learn python in 2019. Also, why python is getting popularity in 2019. So, let’s get started.
Overview:
The thing has been changing since 2016, python replaced java and colleges started to teach java in colleges and universities. Now the number of colleges and the universities that are teaching python is increasing day by day. The very question that might come into the programmer’s mind is that why possibly, should a programmer learn python. As python is growing, that doesn’t mean that Java or C++ are declining or growing down.
If you are a beginner, then you should start learning python. It’s easy to learn and comes with the ultimate power of programming that helps to build web applications and much more. In the very beginning, python becomes popular because or writing scripts in python. For an experienced programmer, who is already familiar with the other programming languages like a ruby on rails, Java, or JavaScript, learning python means learning an all-new tool that is powerful enough to harness the true power of programming?
Why should you learn it?
If you are new to the python and want to know what are the reasons you should learn this all-new powerful tool. Without any further intros, let us start with the reasons why someone should learn python in 2019.
Data Science:
One of the biggest reasons for programmers to learn python is data science. In 2019, a number of people have enrolled in the online courses offered by many different online virtual learning platforms like Udemy, etc. to start of a new career in Data Science with python.
Now the question that arises is, why so many of the people are moving toward the python for data science? Not too long ago, people were using R for the same purpose. The answer to this question is the libraries that are offered by Python in this regard. Some examples of the libraries that are offered by Python are PyBrain, NumPy, MySQL, etc. the other reason that people are moving from R to Python is the power of Python being able to write scripts. With the help of python, we can automate a lot of things just by executing the scripts, Developing Web Applications and much more.
Machine Learning:
Probably the second most important reason to learn python in 2019. For the past few years, machine learning has been grown very much and a lot of people are getting enrolled in the machine learning courses. Day by day, the algorithms are getting more and more efficient and are growing every single day. One of the best examples is the Googles search algorithm.
If you are interested in Machine learning and want to learn about machine learning then python is the only language that can make this learning easy for you.
Web Development:
Web development is also one of the main characteristics that come with python. Python has frameworks like Django and Flask which can be used to create professional looking websites very quickly.
The same task that consumed hours of doing using PHP can be simplified into the matter of a few minutes. It is also used for web scripting a number of popular websites on the internet that are built using Python.
Simplicity:
The very single reason for the beginners to learn Python in its simplicity. This language doesn’t have much of the tough syntax and difficult rules to understand. That is the reason it the best programming language to start programming with for the beginners.
Huge Community:
When you are learning a programming language, there can be a number of roadblocks during your way of learning the language. In that case, you need to consult to a professional that is available to assist the new learners with their problems. Python has a huge community of developers that are available to help the beginners and other developers who stuck to a problem and cannot find a solute for that by themselves.
Having a great community encourages most of the new and experienced programmers to get their hands dirty with python programming. If you are a python programmer and at some point, of your code, you will get a bug or an error. Just post that onto stack overflow and the experienced and professional developers will give you the solution. Or a suggestion on how to resolve that issue, bug or fix an error.
Libraries and Frameworks:
It is always very difficult to develop a web application without having a framework or without using libraries. That is the reason both Java and Python come up with the huge support of libraries. Also, provide frameworks to make the development process a lot easier. There frameworks and libraries make your job a lot easier and you can easily focus on your business logic.
Automation:
Python has a great feature that comes with it, which python is scripting. There are a number of different operations and tasks that can be automated using the python scripts. That thing that had to be managed manually by other programming languages can easily be automated using Python that saves you a lot of effort and time.
Conclusion:
Finally, we are at a point where we can conclude something form all of the above-held discussion. Both Java and Python are capable of doing a lot of powerful things and are the most popular languages, no doubt. If you are new to programming and you don’t have any of the previous programming backgrounds, then probably, learning python would be a good choice for you. It would be easy to learn because of its easy to understand syntax.
However, if you have a goal to be a developer to develop enterprise level applications that have been coming from early languages like C/C++ world, then Java would be the best choice for you.
In the case of popularity, there is a greater number of developers of Java in the market right now. Python is also growing very fast. It will not be wrong to say that Python is the most growing language of 2019.