Selection of a programming language is always critical to writing your very first code. Both Python and JavaScript behave in pretty similar ways but their use cases, syntax, and programming approaches are different. Let’s begin with an understanding of Python and JavaScript.
Python is one of the fastest-growing programming languages and has been ever since its launch. It supports 4 programming paradigms – Imperative programming, functional programming, object-oriented programming, and procedural programming. Python is:
It provides a lot of efficiencies and is pretty much powerful.
JavaScript is used for UI development in web projects of any size. It was earlier used to handle client-side scripting but later expanded to serve server-side programming languages as well. Scripts make the coding tasks easier like page reloading, page animation, refreshes, adjusting automatically to the input etc.
JavaScript is the most favoured language for web programming and design. It goes well with frontend development, backend development and even with an end-to-end full-stack development. Right from extending the application with new features or making one from scratch, JavaScript works along with helping build dynamic web pages, providing functionality to existing features and providing support structures for building web pages.
JS provides support structures to build any sort of web applications and any kind of webpages. With a slight knowledge of frameworks like Angular, React, Vue.JS, Ember.JS, Meteor, Mithril, Node.js, Polymer, Aurelia, and Backbone.js, it becomes easy to create beautiful and fully functional web applications with few lines of code.
JavaScript codes are called scripts which are used to execute HTML pages during run time. It is understandable with easy syntax, has huge support from the community, and is adaptable across platforms.
Also read:
| Differences | Python | JavaScript |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Python is a high-level general-purpose programming language that comes with an emphasis on code readability. | JavaScript is a programming language, for front-end development preferably and conforms to the ECMAScript specification. Its code is known as scripts. |
| Data Types | Python supports both the usage of mutable (sets) and immutable data types (lists) and more. This makes it easy for the developers and increases the usability of the application. | JavaScript does not have the separation of mutable and immutable nature for data types. |
| Numbers | Python supports different numerics like int, float, decimals and more to handle a variety of numerical data. | Javascript supports only the usage of floating-point numbers to handle the numerical data. |
| Hash Tables | Python supports the usage of hash tables via sets and dictionaries to create key-value pairs. | JavaScript does not offer any sort of native support for hashing functions or hash table creations. |
| Code Blocks | Python is known for its usage of indentation to define code blocks and sublevel entities. | JavaScript makes use of the ‘{}’ to define the code blocks and ‘;’ as a statement terminator. |
| Data Conversion | Python is a strongly typed programming language that means that there is no support for implicit datatype conversion. | JavaScript is a weekly typed language and hence offers and supports implicit datatype conversions. |
| Functional Arguments | Python will always raise an exception if any function that has incorrect parameters is called. | JavaScript defaults all of its parameters as undefined hence it does not need to check for the presence of the exact parameter. |
| Inheritance Model | Python uses the class-based inheritance model to function effectively. | JavaScript makes use of a prototype-based inheritance model to function. |
| Object Access | Python uses methods and in every method, the first argument is always the self-argument. | JavaScript is different in that it uses the ‘this’ method to access an object. |
| Key Applications | Python is ideal for data-intensive operations like Machine learning, Deep learning and Data analytics. | JavaScript is well known and very efficient in helping build elegant web applications and dynamic websites |
| Ease of Learning | Python offers better readability in terms of code and shorter syntax which makes it easier for learners. | JavaScript uses native syntax that doesn’t offer as much readability or conciseness as Python. |
| What type of programming language is it? | Python is an object-oriented programming language that is helpful in web projects. | It is a high-level, open-source interpreted programming language. |
| Who created it? | Python was created as a successor of ABC programming language by Guido van Rossum at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands | Brendan Eich at Netscape Communications Corpora, ECMA International, Mozilla Foundation |
| Which is more consistent? | It is lightweight. | It is heavier and complex |
| Server-Side/ Client-Side Scripting | Python code is generated by selecting information from a database that resides on the server | Both client as well as server-side |
| File Extension | .py | .js |
| Syntax | It is easier than JavaScript and is beginner-friendly. | Script tag encloses all sentences. A request is sent to the browser to execute the text that comes in between these tags like a script. <script>//javascript code</script> |
| Annotations | Python does not provide any semantics with annotations, just the syntactic support for associating metadata and the easiest way to access it. | These are not required for coding in JavaScript |
| Time for Coding | It is slightly higher than JavaScript | It’s faster to code and results are equally quick. |
| Interface | It comes with many interface options – Arduino, MySQL, c++, excel, MatLab, FORTRAN, raspberry pi | Not available |
| Compilation | compile() method is used | Not required |
| Type System | Suitable for larger projects | Suitable for smaller projects. |
| Support for Modules | Python supports modules and functions for various monitoring tasks. | JS does not support any modules |
| Interface | Python does not have interfaces and is not quite built into the language. Python’s abstract base class lets define a class with abstract methods, which all subclasses need to implement to be initialized. | JavaScript does not have an Interface |
| Parameter | Yes, data or parameters can be passed into a function. | Does not support any parameter function |
| Types and Interfaces | Types and Interfaces in Python are handled in different ways than in most other languages, and they can vary in their design complexity. | JS does not support these |
| Prototyping | Python makes use of the Prototype Method which is a creational design pattern that allows object cloning without coupling to their specific classes. Same class objects can access each other’s private fields. | JavaScript doesn’t support this feature |
| Scripting Language | It is a programming language used for developing both webs, and desktop applications can be used both for front and backend development. | It is a client and server-side scripting language. |
| Inheritance Model | It uses a class-based inheritance model. | It uses a prototype-based inheritance model. |
| Exception Handling | In this, an exception is raised when the function is called with the wrong parameters. | It does not care about the functions are called with correct parameters or not. |
| Mutable and Immutable Objects, Arrays, Lists, Tuples | List and set are mutable while integer, tuple, boolean, Unicode are immutable in python. | In JavaScript, only objects and arrays are mutable. |
| Programming Paradigms | It makes use of a more conservative programming paradigm similar to C, C++, and Java. | It is the language of the web browser and one of the easiest to use. |
| Library, tools and resources | It has a comprehensive standard library, tools, and resources. | The set of utility objects that it has is limited. |
Although we have differentiated amongst these two programming languages, we still cannot mark any one of these as the ultimate one. Both come with their capabilities and are righteous in their way. Both Python and JavaScript are easy to understand and are widely accepted for web app development. JavaScript offers amazing new features to build native applications and websites thereby making it a necessity for all. Building apps with Python has been effective in the field of distributed computing and artificial intelligence and it is stepping into the world of web development as well. With Python programming language, you will write small chunks of syntax which will have a great effect on the output. It is better designed than JavaScript and is thus easier to maintain. We have tools to make Python more effective and it is getting into that web development field, but JavaScript was natively built for that. But then again it is slower to run as compared to JavaScript. The presence of a huge standard library in Python versus the presence of limited standard resources in JavaScript will make you wonder where we’re leading you. We’ll not act as prophesier for any of these either but our development teams have been handling both Python and JavaScript with ease. If interested, contact us to know more about JavaScript and Python for app development.
Neeti Kotia is a technology journalist who seeks to analyze the advancements and developments in technology that affect our everyday lives. Her articles primarily focus upon the business, social, cultural, and entertainment side of the technology sector.
Or send us an email at: [email protected]
