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  5. COBOL vs JavaScript vs PHP

COBOL vs JavaScript vs PHP

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

PHP
PHP
Stacks147.4K
Followers82.9K
Votes4.6K
GitHub Stars39.6K
Forks8.0K
JavaScript
JavaScript
Stacks392.2K
Followers284.0K
Votes8.1K
COBOL
COBOL
Stacks130
Followers147
Votes2

COBOL vs JavaScript vs PHP: What are the differences?

# Introduction
When comparing COBOL with JavaScript and PHP, there are several key differences that distinguish these programming languages from each other.

1. **Syntax and Structure**: COBOL is known for its verbose and structured syntax, making it easier for beginners to read and understand. On the other hand, JavaScript and PHP have more concise syntax with flexibility in coding styles, making them more suitable for web development and modern programming practices.

2. **Typing System**: COBOL is statically typed, meaning variables need to be declared with specific data types and strictly followed throughout the program. In contrast, JavaScript and PHP are dynamically typed, allowing variables to change types during runtime, offering more flexibility but also potentially causing more errors.

3. **Usage and Industry**: COBOL is commonly used in legacy systems, especially in financial institutions and government agencies, due to its reliability, security, and compatibility with older hardware. JavaScript and PHP, on the other hand, are widely adopted in web development for creating interactive websites and web applications, showcasing their versatility and adaptability in the digital era.

4. **Concurrency and Scalability**: JavaScript and PHP support asynchronous programming and event-driven architecture, making them suitable for handling concurrent tasks and scalable applications. COBOL, however, lacks robust support for concurrency and scalability, making it less favorable for modern, high-performance computing environments.

5. **Community and Support**: JavaScript and PHP have large and active communities with abundant resources, libraries, and frameworks available for developers, enabling faster development and troubleshooting. In contrast, COBOL has a smaller community and limited modern resources, making it challenging to find up-to-date tools and support for development projects.

6. **Learning Curve and Accessibility**: COBOL is often perceived as complex and outdated, requiring specialized training and knowledge, which can be a barrier for new developers. On the contrary, JavaScript and PHP are more accessible and beginner-friendly, with a wealth of online resources, tutorials, and documentation, encouraging a wider adoption and learning curve.

In Summary, COBOL, JavaScript, and PHP differ in syntax, typing system, usage, concurrency support, community, and accessibility, catering to distinct programming needs and preferences in various industries and development scenarios.

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Advice on PHP, JavaScript, COBOL

Octavian
Octavian

Software Engineer

May 26, 2020

Decided

Both PHP and Python are free but when it comes to web development PHP wins for sure. There is no doubt that Python is a powerful language but it is not optimal for web. PHP has issues... of course; but so does any other language.

Another reason I chose PHP is for community - it has one of the most resourceful communities from the internet and for a good reason: it evolved with the language itself.

The fact that OOP evolved so much in PHP makes me keep it for good :)

377k views377k
Comments
Davit
Davit

Apr 11, 2020

Needs advice

Hi everyone, I have just started to study web development, so I'm very new in this field. I would like to ask you which tools are most updated and good to use for getting a job in medium-big company. Front-end is basically not changing by time so much (as I understood by researching some info), so my question is about back-end tools. Which backend tools are most updated and requested by medium-big companies (I am searching for immediate job possibly)?

Thank you in advance Davit

390k views390k
Comments
Muhamed
Muhamed

Apr 28, 2020

Needs adviceonPythonPythonJavaScriptJavaScriptDjangoDjango

I am currently learning web development with Python and JavaScript course by CS50 Harvard university. It covers python, Flask, Django, SQL, Travis CI, javascript,HTML ,CSS and more. I am very interested in Flutter app development. Can I know what is the difference between learning these above-mentioned frameworks vs learning flutter directly? I am planning to learn flutter so that I can do both web development and app development. Are there any perks of learning these frameworks before flutter?

737k views737k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

PHP
PHP
JavaScript
JavaScript
COBOL
COBOL

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

COBOL was one of the first programming languages to be standardised: the first COBOL standard was issued by ANSI in 1968. COBOL is primarily used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
39.6K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
8.0K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
147.4K
Stacks
392.2K
Stacks
130
Followers
82.9K
Followers
284.0K
Followers
147
Votes
4.6K
Votes
8.1K
Votes
2
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 954
    Large community
  • 820
    Open source
  • 767
    Easy deployment
  • 488
    Great frameworks
  • 387
    The best glue on the web
Cons
  • 21
    So easy to learn, good practices are hard to find
  • 16
    Inconsistent API
  • 8
    Fragmented community
  • 6
    Not secure
  • 3
    Hard to debug
Pros
  • 1670
    Can be used on frontend/backend
  • 1497
    It's everywhere
  • 1163
    Lots of great frameworks
  • 899
    Fast
  • 746
    Light weight
Cons
  • 24
    A constant moving target, too much churn
  • 20
    Horribly inconsistent
  • 16
    Javascript is the New PHP
  • 9
    No ability to monitor memory utilitization
  • 8
    Shows Zero output in case of ANY error
Pros
  • 2
    Business Oriented Language
Cons
  • 2
    Extremely long code for simple functions
Integrations
Laravel
Laravel
No integrations availableNo integrations available

What are some alternatives to PHP, JavaScript, COBOL?

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Swift

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

Rust

Rust

Rust is a systems programming language that combines strong compile-time correctness guarantees with fast performance. It improves upon the ideas of other systems languages like C++ by providing guaranteed memory safety (no crashes, no data races) and complete control over the lifecycle of memory.

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