When it comes to web application development, the first thing that developers decide while starting a project is to choose the right programming language to develop a web application. Generally, developers end up choosing programming languages that make their development work easy and interesting. They want to achieve superior performance while putting fewer efforts and there are programming languages that can make it possible.
When it comes to programming languages, you must have heard about Python and JavaScript, both of these languages are excellent in performance and security. Though we often heard about JavaScript vs Python comparison, in reality, both the programming languages are powerful when it comes to making highly scalable and robust web applications. Both the programming languages have their strengths and differences that developers should be aware of. It might help them to choose the right programming language for their project.
Let's discuss in brief about Python and JavaScript first.
JavaScript
If we go by a technical definition, JavaScript is a scripting language that is used to create highly-functional and dynamic web applications and software programs. A scripting language is a type of coding language that automates website to take certain actions users want. When you make some command or take any action on the website, it is the scripting language that makes it happen. JavaScript is a universal scripting language that is used by all the giant companies such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and others. When Google shows you search results based on the few letters you have typed, it is the JavaScript that is working for you.
In addition to that, JavaScript is a favourite scripting language among front end developers and especially beginners who are aspirant. It is easy to learn and use and is very user-friendly, scalable, flexible and versatile.
Furthermore, modern web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Safari are equipped to render JavaScript. It makes an easy run for developers as they can directly type JavaScript command to HTML document. You don't need to download any third-party programs or compilers to develop web applications.
Also, JavaScript libraries and frameworks are available for developers to make web application development easier and efficient. Famous JavaScript Frameworks are ReactJS and AngularJS which make it easy for developers to build robust web application development. With JS code snippets, developers can perform routine JavaScript tasks easily and effortlessly. Also, JavaScript Frameworks come with a template for arranging JavaScript code on their website.
Python
Python is an object-oriented, high-level programming language that has dynamic semantics. Unlike JavaScript, python is an object-oriented programming language that lets developers build sites and apps with virtual building blocks or objects.
When JavaScript, a scripting language asks the website to do something based on the external commands and controls, python, an object-oriented programming language takes a whole different approach. Here, developers can create virtual blocks or objects with unique attributes and abilities that can interact with each other and perform certain actions when asked to.
Python lets developers build a virtual set of blocks and can instruct a different set of blocks to perform different actions and things. One of the biggest advantages of using Python is that it reduces complexity as these objects can be maintained separately and can be reused again in future programs. Python can be used for a full-scale software development purpose and also as a scripting language for connecting different existing components of a website or software too. Also, python development is easy, streamlined and uncomplicated.
Which language to choose- JavaScript vs Python for web development?
To choose JavaScript vs Python for web development is an easy choice as developers can easily decide about it after carefully evaluating the project and its complexities.
Now let's check out some of the parameters that might affect your decision to choose Python or JavaScript.
Easy to use and implement
For beginners, who are just about to enter the development career, wants to ensure that they use a programming language that is easy to learn, use and implement without much complexities and hindrances. When you are a beginner and want to choose the best programming language between python Vs JavaScript, python is the answer.
Python is a tailor-made programming language that is very user-friendly for beginners. It is easy to use and there is no design complexity associated with it. It is easy to develop a dynamic website using python. JavaScript is far more complex language to learn compared to Python.
Versatility
JavaScript and Python, both the programming languages are perfect for dynamic web applications and software development, but there is a simple thing worth mentioning here. When it comes to future technology trends such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, JavaScript is not much suited for the purpose. Python is here from a long period and has carved a niche for itself when it comes to a programming language for data statistics and numeric handling applications.
One advantage of JavaScript that needs to be mentioned is that it can be used as front-end and backend language and that is the reason, for full-stack web application development, JavaScript is the most preferred choice of programmers. Also, for mobile app development, JavaScript is preferred over python as python is a server-side backend language.
So in conclusion, Python and JavaScript both score well when it comes to versatility and utility. Also, both have rich libraries and frameworks to be used.
Performance
For JavaScript, we will use NodeJS for comparison with python and when it comes to speed and performance, NodeJS is way faster than Python as NodeJS is based on chrome's V8 that is a very fast and powerful engine. If you are developing real-time applications, JavaScript is your best bet.
NodeJS has an event-based architecture and non-blocking I/O that maximises the use of CPU and computer memory. It lets NodeJS servers to make and process more requests than multi-threaded servers. When it comes to python vs JavaScript performance, both programming languages win.
Scalability
To understand and measure how scalable your product is, you need to check out how effective the product is while handling large user traffic when the server utilisation is minimum. Also, programmers play a crucial role here as to how scalable and optimized the coding is done that can allow the product to be more flexible and scalable.
Python does not support asynchronous programming by default, but with the help of coroutines, asynchronous programming can be achieved easily. On the other hand, when it comes to NodeJS, though it looks more scalable and flexible, it might not be the case. Sometimes, due to asynchronous programming, NodeJS might not work best for large projects. Python is great at handling large-sized projects.
Some quick key differences between python and JavaScript that developers should need to know.
Read-eval-Print-Loop (REPL)
REPL comes with the installation of python with different python versions. In JavaScript, there is not in-built REPL, but it can be used by installing NodeJS.
Mutability
Python has mutable and immutable data sets whereas JavaScript does not have such a concept of mutable and immutable.
Strings
Python source code is ASCII by default and JavaScript must be encoded as UTF-16 and there is no in-built support for manipulation of raw bytes.
Numbers
There are different types of numerics in python such as int, float, fixed point decimal etc. JavaScript has only floating-point numbers.
Hash tables
Python has in-built hash tables that are called dictionaries and sets. JavaScript has no such in-built hash table support.
Code Blocks
Python uses indentation and JavaScript has curly brackets for code Blocks.
Conclusion
If developers have a dilemma to whether choose python or JavaScript for web development, they need to look at the project first and they will get an answer for the same. Both programming languages have their strengths and limitations and an ideal developer would be able to understand and identify the best programming language for his/ her project.
Mihir Mistry
CEO
by Sanjay kidecha
by Drashti Pandya
by Sagar Bagsariya
by Manav Patel
