Java Vs Python

Two of the most in demand languages today, Java and Python are the second and third most popular languages for the fourth year in a row, while Javascript is remains at #1 according to GitHub’s annual Octoverse report. Whereas Java is placed at #1 and Python at #3 in the TIOBE Index for August 2019

History

Java is a statically typed general purpose programming language. It follows the OOP properties. It was designed to be a write once run anywhere language, providing platform independence, with the help of JVM. JDK 1.0 was released in (January 23, 1996).

Python is a dynamically-typed general purpose programming language. Python’s early development began at a research institute in the Netherlands with the motive to reduce the gap between C and Shell.Visit the historyto know more.

Java Vs Python 2019

Python’s 2.x support is about to end on 1st January 2020 and having only a few months before the new version is released, with the release of Python 3.x most of the users seem to be waiting for the new one due to its improved features.

On the other hand, Oracle’s new model release for java created a lot of uncertainity in the software community. Several platforms providers, such as Red Hat and Amazon, have stepped in to support OpenJDK. ut the once unified Java community is more fragmented than Python ever was. Let’s take a closer look at the similarities and differences between Java vs. Python.

Basic differences

Java is both compiled and interpreted / Python is an Interpreted Language

Java is an OOP Language / Python is a scripting Language

Java is statically typed / Python is dynamically typed which means while coding in python you need not to declare variable types, as the interpreter will automatically assume the data types at runtime. This is called Duck Typing.

Speed

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.

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 due to its huge implementation in enterprises for more time than that of Python.

Performance

The performance of a language depends on the program’s implementation, the library functions are the key factors in deciding the performance of a language. Here’s a link of the Benchmark’s game a project where the detailed analysis of the performances of Java and Python is given.

Syntax and code

A feature that according to many gives Python an edge over Java is its syntax. Python syntaxes allow programmers to express concepts in fewer lines of code than possible in languages. The language provides constructs intended to enable clear programs. Python code can be packaged into stand-alone executable programs for some of the most popular operating systems, so Python-based software can be distributed to, and used on, those environments with no need to install a Python interpreter.

Python

• Python doesn’t use enclosing braces and follows indentation rules making it easier for beginners .

• Case sensitive

• Python statements do not need a semicolon to end

• A comment line begins with a ‘#’ symbol in Python

Java

• Java statements uses curly braces

• Case sensitive

• Java statements end with a semicolon

• A comment line in Java starts with ‘//’.

The following code snippet prints the statement “Hello, world” in Python :

print('Hello, world!')

Yes, that’s it! As mentioned before Python is very easy to code, and doesn’t have strict syntax rules.

The following code snippet prints the statement “Hello, world” in Java :

class Myclass
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
	 System.out.println(“Hello, world”);
}
}

Reading a file in Python

The following code snippet is to show how to read a file in Python:

f = open("file.txt", "r") #here “r” denotes Read and file.txt is the source
print(f.read())

While reading a file in Java we can opt for either of the Scanner Class or the BufferedReader class since they are easy to use, though there are other ways.

The following code snippet is to show how to read a file in Java:

//using scanner class
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.util.Scanner;
class ReadingFile

{

public static void main(String[] args)throws FileNotFoundException

{

File file = new File("");//source of the file

Scanner sc = new Scanner(file);

sc.useDelimiter("\\Z"); // we just need to use \\Z as delimiter

System.out.println(sc.next());

}

}
//using BufferedReader class

import java.io.*;

public class ReadFromFile2
{

public static void main(String[] args)throws Exception

{

// We need to provide file path as the parameter:

// double backquote is to avoid compiler interpret words

// like \test as \t (ie. as an escape sequence)

File file = new File("C:\\Users\\pratik\\Desktop\\programs\\test.txt");
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
String st;

while ((st = br.readLine()) != null)

System.out.println(st);

}

}

Hence you can see it’s quite complex than Python to code in Java. For better understanding let’s take another example of generating a Fibonacci series

The following code snippet is to generate the Fibonacci series up to 10terms in Python :

nterms = 10

# first two terms
n1 = 0
n2 = 1
count = 0

# check if the number of terms is valid
if nterms <= 0:

print("Please enter a positive integer")

elif nterms == 1:

print("Fibonacci sequence upto",nterms,":")

print(n1)

else:

print("Fibonacci sequence upto",nterms,":")

while count < nterms:

print(n1,end=' ')

nth = n1 + n2

# update values

n1 = n2

n2 = nth

count += 1

OUTPUT:

01 12 3 58 13 2134

The following code snippet is to generate the Fibonacci series up to 10terms in Java:

class Fibonacci
{
public static void main(String args[])
{

	int n1=0,n2=1,n3,i;

System.out.print(n1+" "+n2);//printing 0 and 1

for(i=2;i<10;++i)//loop starts from 2 because 0 and 1 are already printed

{

n3=n1+n2;

System.out.print(" "+n3);

n1=n2;

n2=n3;

}

}

}

OUTPUT:

01 12 3 58 13 2134

A Python program is typically 3-5 times shorter than its counterpart in Java. As we can see since both are different languages, thus both have different syntaxes. It’s up to the user to choose which language is more suitable to them.

Database access

Like we’ve always said, Python’s database access layers are weaker than Java’s JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity). This is why it isn’t used in enterprises rarely use it in critical database applications. Java takes the lead here.

Application

Web Development: Creating your own backend technology from scratch is very difficult and also needs to cover all design requirements. That’s why frameworks are created, which is an abstraction in software that allows you to build your own backend technology without much difficulty.

Django and Flask are the 2 most popular Python frameworks. Django is equipped with a powerful ORM layer which facilitates dealing databases and performing different operations on the data. Other frameworks : web2py, , Bottle, Pyramid, Pylons, Tornado, TurboGears, CherryPy, Twisted

Spring is the most well-known Java backend framework. Notable enterprises like Dell, GE, Orange use Spring. Other frameworks: Hibernate, Struts, JSF (Java Server Faces), GWT (Google Web Toolkit), Play!, Vaadin, Grails, Wicket, Vert.x

Machine Learning: Python has become the first choice of many in the field of Machine Learning, due to easy syntax, hence people from different branches who wanted to experiment with ML and AI as they need not know the strict syntaxes as they might have to follow for other languages. One big reason why most of the AI and ML is done with Python and its huge libraries. Examples of libraries: TensorFlow, Keras, Sickit-Learn, and Facebook’s PyTorch.

Though Java is a good option, with libraries like Weka, Mallet, DeepLearning4, and MOA, and large scale enterprises use java, but the advantages Python provides are more than that of Java.

Trends

As of now, Java is still the most popular programming language by virtually any measure. But we can see the growth Python has had. The reasons for this amazing growth include developer productivity, language flexibility, library support, community support, and ease of learning. We can monitor it from the graph here.

_{Source : edureka!}

Trends in July 2019

_{Source : Datanyze}

Now let's have a look at the current market share of these two :

_{Source : Datanyze}

Salary

As the current scenario stands a python developer (fresher) has a better salary package than that of a Java Developer(fresher), that’s due to the prefered implementation ofPython in the field of Ai and ML. But the case is quite different in experienced (6yrs+) developers, as a Java developer earns more than a Python Developer. But the rate in which Python is advancing the scenario might be different ina span of few years.

_{Source : edureka!}

Yes though Python provides some more features than java, still I prefer java more despite of working on both of them . Maybe that's because I have spent working on java for more than 4 years. But for beginners who are new to coding and haven't had prior coding knowledge of C and C++, they might prefer Python due to it's syntax. It's not like learning one properly and then demeaning the other, both have their respective field and their respective application.