#AppProgrammingLanguage Archives

Java vs Python: Who is Winning the Coding Battle?

Posted on 08/10/202113/11/2021 by Tushar

Marvel vs DC. Coke vs Pepsi. Nike vs Reebok.

The battle of Java vs Python is nothing less than that of these top rivalry. Both the programming languages have gained limelight in the coding world in different aspects. They have different use cases and even fan bases. In fact, they are used as a metaphor to showcase things entirely different/incompatible.

However, there’s one common factor between them: Both have survived and remain on the top in the programming world since 2000. They have outshined in the market despite the bustling hassle due to the advent of new programming languages.

But, how did they make this possible? And can they beat each other in the coding world as well?

Let’s dive into the programming environment and find out in this article.

Before we begin, let’s look through the prism of history and know the history and pros of python and java.

A Basic Introduction to Java Programming Language

Java is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language developed back in 1995 by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems. The language supports the idea of WORA (Write Once, Run Anywhere) and has a syntax similar to that of C and C++.

It is one of the most popular programming languages in the market with a reported 9 million mobile app developers loving it. A fondness that has been a ripple effect of the benefits it offers to the development environment :-

Pros of Considering Java Programming Language

Java is free, simple, distributed, and object-oriented programming language with support for multithreading programming concept.
It comes with exciting features like try-with-resources, generics, etc., along with automatic garbage collection and seamless memory management models. This makes it a great option for creating highly robust and reliable applications.
Java, since Java SE version 8 (JDK 8), is being updated with functional programming features like Lambda Expressions and Functional interfaces. This enhances the code flexibility, which also counts to the advantages of Java.
Additionally, the language is platform-independent. Meaning, its code can run across different platforms including desktops, mobiles, and embedded systems.

With this covered, let’s take a turn towards Python, before deciding the winner of the Java vs Python war.

A Basic Introduction to Python Programming Language

Python is a dynamically-typed general purpose programming language developed by Guido van Rossum in 1990. The original intent behind its development was to bridge the gap between C and the shell, and simplify the process of creating system administration utilities. But, later its use was expanded to other development areas also.

The language bagged the title of ‘Programming Language Hall of Fame’ for 2018 because of the plethora of advantages it offers, such as:

Benefits of Considering Python Programming Language

One of the prime advantages of Python is that it is open-source and free-to-use.
The Python Package Index (PyPI) has varied third-party modules that eases interaction with other programming languages and platforms, including C, C++, C#, VB, and Perl.
The programming language has a built-in list and dictionary data structures that makes it easier to construct fast runtime data structures.
It offers the functionality of dynamic high-level typing and a wide range of standard libraries related to string operations, operating system interfaces and protocols, web service tools, and more. These reduces the code length and developers’ efforts while working with Python.

Now as we have taken a look into the basics of both Java and Python, it is likely that you are familiar with the similarities and differences between the two languages. So, let’s not wait anymore and turn towards the core part of the article, i.e, Java vs Python comparison.

Factors to Consider When Comparing Python and Java

1. Market Popularity

The foremost factor to consider is the market popularity.

Though Java’s popularity has declined since the advent of Kotlin, the language is still popular in the market. And when it comes to Python, the language is enjoying astronomically higher growth in the development arena.

This gives a clear indication that both the programming languages are the right options to start your career with, in the present scenario.

2. Architecture

In case of Java, Java Virtual Machine (JVM) – a chunk of JRE (Java Run Environment) – provides the runtime environment to operate the code. It converts Java bytecode into machine language which can be directly compiled at the time of execution. This eventually offers a seamless architectural experience to developers.

And when focusing on Python from architecture front, the interpreter translates source code into machine-independent bytecode. It then stores the bytecode file in some folder. When you run the same program, it employs the bytecode without translating it again. These bytecode are then shipping to PVM, where the actual code executes.

3. Ease to Use

Since Python follows a dynamic programming concept, the codes are short, and much easier to use than those written in Java.

Because of this, Python lead the ‘Java vs Python’ battle.

4. Speed and Efficiency

Java comes with a Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler which compiles bytecode into native machine code in real-time, and JVM that calls the compiled code directly. Now, since code need not be interpreted, compiling process does not consume much time and memory. This eventually adds to the speed and efficiency of the development environment.

However, in the case of Python, codes are interpreted based on the variable time, which slows down the pace of compilation during runtime. Also, since the object type of objects is obtained from container objects, higher memory is consumed. This reduces the speed and efficiency of the language.

This makes Python lag behind Java in the ‘Java vs Python’ battle in terms of performance.

5. Code Readability

Python has a linear and less dispersed coding format, when compared to Java. For example, there is no need to put a semicolon at the end of every station. Also, the curly braces are not much practised.

This, as a whole, makes it easier to read and understand Python codes when compared to Java.

6. Practical Agility

When it comes to agile environment, both Java and Python are second to none.

On one side, Java is considered a rigid option due to its undeviating refactoring support and universality of IDEs in development (such as Eclipse, IntelliJ, and NetBeans). Something that makes it an optimal option for embracing web and mobile app technology.

While, on the other side, Python already enjoys a presence in the agile domain and python has been a favorable language for developing apps having IoT, AI, Machine Learning, and more.

7. Database Opportunity

Python’s database access layers are weakly active when compared to Java’s JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity). Because of this, Java gets the privilege to easily connect with different databases like SQL and SQOOP, which eventually makes it more suitable for Enterprise app development solutions.

8. Development Options

In terms of development, both the programming languages offer ample opportunities. Something, which again make it difficult to find which one has an edge over the other.

Java is chosen as the best programming language for building:-

Desktop GUI apps
Embedded Systems
Web applications, including back-office electronic trading systems, data processing, and e-commerce applications.
Web and Application services
Mobile applications
Middleware products
Enterprise solutions, and more.

Whereas, Python is recommended for developing:-

Image processing and Graphic design apps
Games
Computational applications
Machine Learning apps
Operating Systems
Language development
Web frameworks and Web applications
Prototyping, and more.

9. Community Support

Again, both Java and Python enjoys a wide community support.

Python has a strong community of over 1,637 Python user groups in around 37 countries and191 cities. These user groups organize various events, including PyLadies meetups where women meet and code together.

Whereas, when talking about Java, it also has a large and vibrant community support. There are several Java User Groups (JUGs) across the globe. Also, there are various high-profile events like JavaOne organized by the Java programmers.

10. Job Opportunities and Salaries

Both Java and Python, as revealed by Gooroo, have the potential to offer a profitable

future to developers. Both languages are highly in demand in the marketplace, something that can be understood from the number of monthly jobs advertised related to them.

While this proves the number of job opportunities for Java and Python developers, it’s the best time to have a look at the average salary details for these two skills between 2017 and 2019. Something that will help developers to determine which one of the two offers more salary.

While these Java vs Python comparison factors will give you a glimpse of the two coding world, it won’t be enough to choose between the two languages. They have not-so-significant- similarities and differences that make it difficult to choose one. So, it is better to consult with renowned full stack developers to make a sound decision.

Women Who Created History in the Field of Programming

Posted on 11/06/2021 by Anteelo Master

Today, it is almost impossible for some people to believe that such a field as software programming was once almost exclusively a female field. What started as an unprestigious tedious profession done by women is now the field where large amounts of money circulate. As soon as programming started to be used for rocket science and became more prestigious, women were squeezed out not only from their working places but also from the history of programming. Test yourself: how many great women in computer science can you remember?

Let’s try to fix this injustice. Feel free to share the names of inspiring women in programming from your countries, and we’ll try to cover them in future articles!

Ada Lovelace

Women Who Created History in the Field of Programming

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was an English mathematician, writer, and the author of the first computer program as we know it today. She was born in the family of Lord and Lady Byron (yes, the Byron). However, she didn’t get to know her father, who left soon after she was born. Her mother, fed up with the romantic aspirations of her husband, did everything possible for Ada to grow up with a firm grounding in math and natural science. She was taught by the best teachers it was possible to find at that time.

Ever since she was a little girl, Ada was eager to learn and put her mind into inventions. For example, when she was twelve, she tried to construct mechanical wings so that she could fly. She approached the matter very scientifically, investigating different materials and how birds’ wings are constructed.

In 1833, she met Charles Babbage. He was working on a mechanical general-purpose computer that he called the Analytical Engine. Ada’s knowledge about technology and science enabled her to be the first one to recognize that the machine had application beyond pure calculations. She even wrote and published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. That makes her the first computer programmer in history. The imperative programming language Ada was named in her honor and memory.

Hedy Lamarr

Hedy was a Hollywood actress, film producer, but also… an inventor! She was born in 1914 and had a 28-year career in cinema. What she also did was to invent an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication for torpedo guidance.

Hedy was born in an upper-class family of a pianist and a successful bank manager. She showed early interest in theater and films, but she also enjoyed walks with her father who was explaining to her how various technologies in the society functioned. This was basically all her formal training as an inventor, all the rest she had to learn by herself.

Hedy was a loner and spent most of her time on various hobbies and inventions. Among the few people who knew and supported her work was the aviation tycoon Howard Hughes. She helped him to improve the design of his airplanes, and he put his team of scientists and engineers at her disposal.

During World War II, Lamarr learned that radio-controlled torpedoes that were used back then were easy to set off course. So she thought of creating a frequency-hopping signal that could not be tracked or jammed. She asked her friend, composer and pianist George Antheil, to help her implement it. Together, they developed a device for doing that by synchronizing a miniaturized player-piano mechanism with radio signals. Much later, this system was used to develop WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth technologies.

Kateryna Yushchenko

Kateryna Yushchenko was born in 1919 in Ukraine. She was the first woman in the USSR to obtain a Ph.D. in Physical and Mathematical Sciences in programming. But the path to this Ph.D. wasn’t easy.

In 1937, she was expelled from the university in Kyiv because her father was accused of being the ‘enemy of the nation’. She applied to several universities but, eventually, had to move to Uzbekistan and go to a university in Samarkand, where the accommodation and food were provided by the state. She studied math obsessively. But then, as you know, World War II happened. During the war, Yushchenko got a job in a factory where they produced sights for tanks. Only after the war ended could she return to Ukraine to finalize her degree there.

In 1950, she became a Senior Researcher at the Kyiv Institute of Mathematics and one of the programmers to work on MESM, one of the first computers in continental Europe.

Yushchenko created the Address Programming Language in 1955, which could use addresses in analogous ways as pointers. She wrote many books about address programming, and the ideas behind it have influenced multiple other programming languages.

Mary Allen Wilkes

Mary Allen Wilkes was born in 1937. This talented woman was one of the first programmers and the first person to use a personal computer in the home. Ever since a little girl, she dreamed of working in law. Growing up, however, she majored in philosophy and theology. But undeniable talent in mathematics led her to become a programmer and logic designer. Wilkes is best known for her work in connection to the LINC computer that many people call the ‘world’s first personal computer’.

In 1959-1960, she worked at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, programming for IBM 704 and IBM 709. These machines were a huge step forward: they were mass-produced, handled complex math, and could be fitted into one room. But they were not suited for home use. In comparison, LINC represented a box that could be transported much easier (however, still with the effort of two or more people). For that time, it was really ‘small’ as Wilkes calls it in her paper. Mary Wilkes worked on LINC from home and wrote LAP6, one of the earliest operating systems for personal computers, which was very sophisticated for her time.

LAP6 is an on-line system running on a 2048-word LINC which provides full facilities for text editing, automatic filing and file maintenance, and program preparation and assembly. It focuses on the preparation and editing of continuously displayed 23,040-character text strings (manuscripts) which can be positioned anywhere by the user and edited by simply adding and deleting lines as though working directly on an elastic scroll. Other features are available through a uniform command set which itself can be augmented by the user. — Mary Allen Wilkes, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri

Angular 5.0 for Mobile App Development- Understand

Posted on 20/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

A short time ago, on November 1, 2017, Google rolled out its fifth version of the tool that app developers have been swearing by, Angular – Angular 5.0.

And ever since its launch, the version has been an active source of discussion among the various Google developers communities.

While it’s the technical features and improvisations that Angular 5.0 has been launched is what making the developers swoon over it, let us look at why you, as a brand that has decided to launch a mobile app, should have a peek at it, as well.

But before we get into the reasons that would make investing in Angular 5.0 for your next app, let us look at the upgrades this version has got over its previous one, very briefly.

How is Angular 5.0 Different From its other Versions

Build Optimizer With Angular 5.0, Google has been able to mark the parts of users’ app as pure, which removes the parts of users’ application which aren’t needed. It even removes the Angular decorators from the users’ application code run time. The aim is to increase your app’s boot speed.
Angular Universal State Transfer API The API is focused specifically on helping the developers perform the server-side rendering of the Angular applications. By doing this and then bootstrapping it on HTML generated, one can give support to the crawlers and scrapers, which do not support JavaScript, thus increasing your application’s performance.
New Router Lifecycle Event It allows the developers to track cycle of their router from the very start of the running guards till the completion of the activation.
Improvements in Compiler The improvements now provide fast rebuilds, Specifically for the production builds and those with AOT. There have also been features addition in the Decoraters, which now makes it possible to ship small bundles by eliminating the whitespaces.

While these are just the few, there are a lot many additions in the Angular 5.0 version, making it one of the best Google’s tools for Application Development.

Now that you must have gotten the idea of the latest Angular version and what it entails, let us now look at some of the reasons that make Angular 5.0 worth investing for any brand looking to enter the mobile world with their partner app development agency.

Reasons to Choose Angular 5.0 for your next Mobile App

1. Reduced Loading Time

A greater loading time implies greater user dissatisfaction and lowering user patience. A factor that translates in greater app abandonment numbers, and greatly dissatisfied customers along with poor productivity. All of which can be tackled with one of the Google offerings – Progressive Web Apps.

Angular 5.0 has introduced an API called the Service Worker that is made in sync with the concept of Progressive Web Apps. The API, which is also used to migrate websites into PWA, is the JavaScript Worker, which runs in browser background and even allows the admissions of features, which don’t need any involvement of the web page and/or the user-interaction. Now with the API, when the app utilizes caches to serve its users, one can expect the app to showcase offline mode functionalities. This is a massive move for the Mobile Apps community, as the inability to serve users in offline mode has kept maximum mobile app brands in the back seat.

2. User Experience to Go Better with Enhanced Material Design

Material Design in mobile app is that comprehensive framework, which is mixed with resources, theories, and tools which are aims at providing the required guidance to make the mobile experience a creative one.

AngularJS 5 is to make Material Design components compatible with server-side rendering. Beyond doubt, this is no less than a reward for the UI-UX designers. The attempt by Google will help in improving the visual language that users understand the best irrespective of their ages. If you are an AngularJS developer, hold your breath as Google is yet in the process of eliminating a few bugs before releasing this functionality.

3. Lower App Abandonment Rate

The number reason behind app abandonment has been slug issues. When it comes to the app users, they have very less patience towards the apps that work slow and even worse is not responsive. Both the issues, clubbing as app’s poor performance together increases the app abandonment and bounce rates. But, no more.

Angular 5.0 has completely revamped the RAIL model (Response, Animation, Idle, and Load Model), which focuses on making the app much responsive towards its user’s actions. In the developer’s guidelines, Google has emphasized much strongly on faster user-interface, and Angular 5.0 is just the tool for that. The tools is expected to allow the users to be acknowledged within 100 ms, in case of no scrolling or animation, the page should appear in under 10 ms and lastly, for they should be delivered the content they came looking for within a time frame of 1000 ms.

The Build Optimizer feature of Angular 5.0 aims to do just that. As the tool comes in as default, the developers don’t have to do anything extra to make it come into the process. It helps reduce the mobile application size by leaving out unnecessary codes. By introducing the StaticInjector instead of the ReflectiveInjector, Google has made it easy for the AngularJS developers to lower down their application size, substantially.

Angular JS 5 is all set to make the app industry faster and responsive. Are you ready for the future.

Tag: #AppProgrammingLanguage

Java vs Python: Who is Winning the Coding Battle?

A Basic Introduction to Java Programming Language

Pros of Considering Java Programming Language

A Basic Introduction to Python Programming Language

Benefits of Considering Python Programming Language