Python vs. Java: What’s The Difference?

• Python has become a more popular programming language than Java. Google Trends show Python’s fame has risen significantly above Java in the year 2017:
• This trend is most likely caused because of Python’s amazing use for the experimentation, and Java’s better use for the production code. There is even more experimentation than the production code.
• Java is a statically typed as well as compiled language, whereas Python is a dynamically typed and interpreted language. This single difference makes Java faster as compared to python at runtime and easier to debug, but Python is much more easier to use and even easier to read.
• Python has gained immense popularity, in large part, due to it’s communicatively; people just tend to grasp it easier. With this, the libraries for Python are immense, so a new programmer will not need to start from scratch. Java is a very old and still widely used, so it also has a large number of libraries and a community for the purpose of support.
• Now, let us take a look at these in depth, we will also be having a look at some code examples to illustrate the differences between the two programming languages: Python and Java.

Python overview

• Python was first released in 1991. It is a language which makes use of an interpreter, it is a high-level, general purpose programming language. It is also Object-Oriented.
• Python was designed by Guido van Rossum, Python actually has a design philosophy which is centered around code readability. The Python community will grade each other’s code based on how Python like the code is.

When to use Python

• The libraries included in Python allow a programmer to get started very quickly. Rarely will they need to start from scratch. If a programmer wishes to jump right into machine learning, there’s a library even for that. If they wish to create a pretty chart, there’s a library for that purpose as well. If you wish to have a progress bar shown in their CLI, there’s a library for that as well.
• Generally speaking, Python is the building block of the programming languages; find a box with instructions on how to use it and get right to work. There is little that is needed to be started from the scratch.

Because of its easy readability, Python is great for:

1. New programmers
2. Getting ideas down fast
3. Sharing code with others

Java overview

• Java is old an old programming language. Java is a general-purpose programming language that makes use of classes and, just like Python, is object-oriented.
• Java was developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems as was released in the year 1995 as a part of Sun Microsystem’s Java Platform. Java has transformed the web experience from the simple text pages to pages with video and animations.

When to use Java

• Java is designed to run on practically anywhere. It makes use of its Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to interpret the compiled code. The JVM acts as its very own interpreter as well as error detector.
• With its ties to the Sun Microsystems, Java was the most widely used and popular server-side programming language. Though no longer is the case, Java has reigned for a long while and garnered a large community, so it still continues to have a lot of support.
• Programming in Java can be considered to be very easy because Java has many libraries built on top of it, making it easier to find code that is already written for a specific purpose.

Who uses Python & Java?

• Python is often used in case of new programmers or the junior developers who are entering a data science role. The huge machine learning libraries, the TensorFlow and the pyTorch, are both written in Python.
• Python has an excellent range of data processing libraries with Pandas as well as Dask, and good data visualization capabilities along with packages such as Matplotlib along with Seaborn.
• Java is used a lot for web development. It is more common among the senior-level programmers. Java allows for asynchronous programming, and has a pretty decent Natural Language Processing community.
• Both of these languages can be used in the API interactions and for the machine learning purpose. Java is a better developed language for building web applications. Python’s Flask library is still only able to build the basic items to a Python-based User Interface but is a great alternative for creating a Python back-end with an API endpoint.

Python vs. Java in code

Let us now see how Java and Python both work very differently.

Syntax

• Because Python is an interpreter based language, its syntax is much more concise as compared with Java, making programs and getting started are easier and testing programs on the fly quick and easy. You can enter the lines right in the terminal, wherein Java needs to compile the whole program in order to run.
• Type python and then 3+2 and then the computer responds with 5.
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• python

3+2

5

Consider doing this very task with Java. Java has no command line interpreter (CLI), so, to print just 5 like we did above, we have to write a complete program and then we have to compile it. Here is Print5.java:

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public class Print5 {

public static void main(String[] args) {

System.out.println(“3+2=” + (Integer.toString(3+2)));

}

}

Now to compile it, type javac Print5.java and run it using java Print5.

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java Print5

3+2=5

In case of Java, we have to make a complete program to print 5. That includes a class and a main function, which tells Java where to start.

It is also possible to have a main function with Python, which you very often do whenever you want to pass it arguments. It looks something like this:

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def main():

print(‘3+2=’, 3+2)

if __name__== “__main__”:

main()

there are many more differences between the two languages. In my opinion you should learn both the languages as both of them have their own benefits.

Thank you for reading this blog!!! I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day!

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