JAVA vs PYTHON

Programming Languages are a fundamental part of computer science, they are fundamental
tools in a programmer’s toolbox and crucial to almost every programming activity. Choosing
between programming languages is often confusing, let alone choosing between the most
popular ones. Python and Java have been battling for the top position on the most popular
programming languages out there, with Python making an amazing progress in the last few
years and Java holding onto its position.
It often seems that these languages are perfect, and in fact, they are capable of doing most of
the tasks out there. This comparison on Java vs Python will provide you with a crisp
knowledge about both the programming languages and help you find out which one fits your
goal better. Java and Python are two of the hottest programming languages in the market
right now because of their versatility, efficiency, and automation capabilities.
We’ll start by explaining each language and key characteristics, then compare them in different
fields in computer science to provide more clarity on your choices.

JAVA
Java is a statically typed general purpose programming language, it is an object-oriented and
concurrent language. Java was meant to be WORA (write once run anywhere) language, it was
designed to run on any platform and with as few dependencies as possible, with the help of the
Java Virtual Machine (JVM). It is dynamically linked, allowing new code to be downloaded
and run, but not dynamically typed.

PYTHON
Python is a dynamically-typed general purpose programming language. Python’s early
development began at a research institute in the Netherlands. The original motivation behind it
was to create a higher level language to bridge the gap between C and the shell. Python was
first released in 1991 by its inventor , Guido van Rossum. It is a readable, efficient and
powerful high level language with automatic memory management .

Python vs Java: Main Differences

Languages don’t have speed, they have only semantics. If you want to compare speed
you must choose specific implementations to compare with each other. In terms of execution,
Java is faster than Python as it is a compiled language. It takes less time to execute a code.
Python is an interpreted language and it determines the type of data at run time which
makes it slower comparatively.

Figure: Java vs Python Performance Comparison

Legacy

Java’s history in the enterprise and its slightly more verbose coding style mean that Java
legacy systems are typically larger and more numerous than python’s.

Python has less legacy problem so organization finds difficulty for the script to copy and
paste codes and gives it a slight edge over the other languages.

Syntax

Python is a dynamically typed language, when you write Python, you don’t need to determine
variable types, as the interpreter will infer these types and the checks will be made at runtime.
Which results in an easier syntax that is quite similar to the English Language. Moreover,
Python doesn’t use enclosing braces and follows indentation rules which makes the code quite
easy to read and friendly for beginners.
 Figure: Python Syntax

In this simple class definition, I’ve created a simple class called fruit, with a constructor, which
is the code that will be executed when I create an instance of the object, and defined two simple
functions as well, each printing one of the object’s attributes.

Java, on the other hand, follows strict syntax rules, it’s a statically typed language where you
need to explicitly declare your variable types and shouldn’t an anomaly be spotted, the code
will not compile, to begin with. While it’s not the easiest thing for beginners, some developers
find comfort with the clarity of statically typed languages, many developers don’t feel
comfortable following indentation rules, especially with large code bases.

Figure: Java Syntax

This is the equivalent to the Fruit class we have defined in Python with the exact same
functionalities.
Popularity

Popularity has always been a game between these two languages, as they’ve been a close
competitors in the top 3 positions of popularity, along with javascript. As per Github’s
Octoverse, Java was the second most used language on Github followed by Python.

In Stackoverflow’s 2018 developer survey, Python was crowned the fastest growing
programming language after taking over C# spot this year and surpassing PHP last year. Java
is still ranked above Python being popular with 45% of developers while Python is at 39%,
however that gap is closing.

Java vs Python: Uses/Applications in various fields

Backend web development is the branch of web development concerned with creating the
software that will run on the server. It’s the most popular development field according to
StackOverflow’s developer survey. Java & Pythonboth languages are used in backend web
development.

Creating your own backend technology from scratch is extremely hard to cover all design
requirements from security to reliability and effectiveness. That’s why developers have created
frameworks which is an abstraction in software that allows you to build your backend
technology without reinventing the wheel.

For Java, Spring is perhaps the most well-known Java backend framework with a massive
ecosystem and a huge community around it. Spring is used by Orange, Dell, GE, and many
other enterprises, and while it’s not as trending as Django nowadays, it is a powerful option for
building enterprise level applications.

The most popular frameworks for Python are Django and Flask. Flask is a micro web
framework, it gives you the basic functionalities you’d need like routing requests without much
overhead. Django is a more featured option and can help you build a powerful backend while
capitalizing on efficiency and security, Django is equipped with a powerful ORM layer which
facilitates dealing databases and performing different operations on the data.

Game Development

We’re not going to talk about general PC game development since neither Python nor Java can
really compete with C++/C# in that area with their huge ecosystem. Moreover, game
development is a field that requires the highest possible performance to provide seamless
experiences to the users, and while Java and Python are not slow, they don’t provide the best
performance for game development.
If you wish to experiment with computer graphics from scratch or build your own engine,
OpenGL also provides bindings for the Java language. JMonkeyEngine is a popular open
source game development engine with Java.

While Python is not a powerful option on its own for game creation, there is Cocos, Panda3d,
Pygame and a few other engines/frameworks for building games with Python. However,
Python isn’t completely ruled out for professional game development, it’s an important tool for
a game developer, as Python is a popular scripting-language option for many developers
including game developers.

Machine Learning

Python is syntactically very easy yet a fully-fledged general purpose programming language,
it became a popular option for people from different disciplines who wanted to experiment
with machine learning and bring the power of AI into their respective fields. That’s why a lot
of the development in AI and machine learning is done with Python with a huge ecosystem and
libraries . There is TensorFlow , Keras , Sickit-Learn, and Facebook’s PyTorch and it’s by far
the most popular language in the field.

Java is also considered a good option for machine learning, it’s easy to debug and use and it’s
already being used for large-scale and enterprise level applications. Among the libraries, you
could use in that area are Weka, Mallet, DeepLearning4, and MOA.

Java vs Python Comparison Summary

Technology Java Python

Popularity Very Popular Very Popular

Syntax Complex. Includes a learning curve Easy to learn & use

Cross Platform Yes. Thanks to the JVM Yes

Backend Blade, Spring Flask , Django

Game Development JMonkeyEngine Cocos , Panda3d

Machine Learning Deeplearning4j,Weka,MOA,Mallet Pytorch , Tensorflow

Now with this, we come to an end of this comparison on Java vs Python. Java is a compiled
language, and Python is an interpreted language. Java and Python are both capable and popular
languages, so there won’t be a lack of resources once you choose one and embark on your
journey. It all goes down on what you plan to build and where you feel like journeying with
your new skill.
Reference
 www.codementor.io
 www.cluelogic.com
 www.hackr.io
 www.stackshare.io
 www.udemy.com
 www.guru99.com
 www.raygun.com
 data-flair.training
 www.quora.com
 www.youtube.com