Java vs Python: What’s the Difference?

What is Java?

Java is a multi-platform, object-oriented, and network-centric, programming language. It is among the most used programming language. It also used as a computing platform, and it was first released by Sun Microsystem in 1995. It was later acquired by Oracle Corporation.

In this Java vs Python tutorial, you will learn:

• What is Java?
• What is Python?
• Why Java?
• Why need Python?
• History of Java
• History of Python
• Features of Java
• Features of Python
• Java vs. Python
• Dis-advantages of Java
• Dis-advantages of Python
• Who is the best?

What is Python?

Python is a high-level object-oriented programming language. It has built-in data structures, combined with dynamic binding and typing, which makes it an ideal choice for rapid application development. Python also offers support for modules and packages, which allows system modularity and code reuse.

It is one of the fastest programming languages as it requires very few lines of code. Its emphasis is on readability and simplicity, which make it a great choice for beginners.

Why Java?

Here, are benefits/ pros of using Java

• Detailed documentation is available.
• A large pool of skilled developers available
• A huge array of 3rd party libraries
• It allows you to form standard programs and reusable code.
• It is a multi-threaded environment that allows you to perform many tasks at the same time in a program.
• Excellent performance
• Easy to navigate libraries

Why need Python?

• Very simple syntax compared to Java, C and C++ languages.
• Used for Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and the general overarching AI field. Very useful in data analysis and visualization.
• Extensive library and handy tools for developers
• Python is cross-compatible
• Python has its auto-installed shell
• Compared with the code of other languages, python code is easy to write and debug. Therefore, its source code is relatively easy to maintain.
• Python is a portable language so that it can run on a wide variety of Operating systems and platforms.
• Python comes with many prebuilt libraries, which makes your development task easy.
• Python helps you to make complex programming simpler. As it internally deals with memory addresses, garbage collection.
• Python provides an interactive shell that helps you to test the things before it’s actual implementation.
• Python offers database interfaces to all major commercial DBMS system.
• Supports imperative and functional programming
• Python is famous for its use in IoT.

History of Java

Here, are important landmarks for Java language

• The Java language was initially called OAK. Originally, it was developed for handling portable devices and set-top boxes. Oak was a massive failure.
• In 1995, Sun changed the name to “Java” and modified the language to take advantage of the burgeoning www (World Wide Web) development business.
• Later, in 2009, Oracle Corporation acquired Sun Microsystems and took ownership of three key Sun software assets: Java, MySQL, and Solaris.

History of Python

Here, are important landmarks for Python language

• Python was first conceived in the late 1980s, but its implementation started only in December 1989
• It was invented in the Netherlands, by Guido van Rossum.
• Rossum published the first version of Python (0.9.0) in February 1999
• It was derived from ABC programming language, which is a general-purpose programming language.
• Nowadays, Python is maintained by a core development team although Rossum still plays a vital role in directing its progress

Features of Java

Here are the important features of Java.

• Write code once and run it on almost any computing platform
• It is designed for building object-oriented applications.
• It is a multithreaded language with automatic memory management
• Facilitates distributed computing as its network-centric

Graph

Here are the important features of Java.

• Write code once and run it on almost any computing platform
• It is designed for building object-oriented applications.
• It is a multithreaded language with automatic memory management
• Facilitates distributed computing as its network-centric

Features of Python

Here, are important features of Python

• Easy to learn, read, and maintain
• It can run on various hardware platforms & using the same interface.
• You can include low-level modules to the Python interpreter.
• Python offers an ideal structure and support for large programs.
• Python offers support for automatic garbage collection.
• It supports an interactive mode of testing and debugging.
• It offers high-level dynamic data types and also supports dynamic type checking.
• Python language can be integrated with Java, C, and C++ programming code.

Difference between Java and Python

Here, are the main differences between Java and Python

 class A {
 public static void main(String args[]){
     System.out.println("Hello World");
 }
}

Hello World in Python:
print "hello world";

Disadvantages of Java

Here, are cons/drawback of using Java language

• JIT compiler makes the program comparatively slow.
• Java has high memory and processing requirements. Therefore, hardware cost increases.
• It does not provide support for low-level programming constructs like pointers.
• You don’t have any control over garbage collection as Java does not offer functions like delete(), free().

Disadvantages of Python

Here, are cons/drawback of using Python language

• Used in fewer platforms.
• Python is interpreted, so it’s much slower than its counterparts.
• Weak in mobile computing, hence not used in app development
• Science Python is dynamic, more errors show up at run-time
• Underdeveloped and primitive database access layer
• Absence of commercial support

Java or Python: Who is the best?

Python is an ideal choice for beginners as the language is more intuitive, and its syntax is very much similar to the English language. Its open-source nature facilitates a slew of new tools that improve it.

On the other hand, Java is a general-purpose programming language that was designed with a specific goal of allowing developers to write once run anywhere.

Selection one language among these ultimately comes down to the nature and the cost of the development project.