JavaScript vs Python

Overview

Python

Stacks262.9K

Followers205.4K

Votes6.9K

GitHub Stars69.7K

Forks33.3K

JavaScript

Stacks392.3K

Followers284.0K

Votes8.1K

JavaScript vs Python: What are the differences?

JavaScript is a widely-used programming language primarily used for web development, known for its ability to create interactive and dynamic web pages. Python, on the other hand, is a versatile language with a focus on simplicity and readability, commonly used for web development, data analysis, scripting, and automation. Here are the key differences between JavaScript and Python:

Language Purpose and Domain: JavaScript is primarily used for web development and runs in web browsers. It is a client-side scripting language that allows dynamic interaction with web pages and enables the creation of interactive user interfaces. Python, on the other hand, is a general-purpose language with a wide range of applications. It is commonly used for web development, scientific computing, data analysis, machine learning, and automation.
Syntax and Readability: JavaScript has a C-style syntax with curly braces and semicolons. It follows an event-driven, imperative programming paradigm. Python, in contrast, emphasizes code readability and uses a clean and elegant syntax with significant whitespace. It enforces code readability by relying on indentation and avoids the use of braces or semicolons.
Typing and Dynamicity: JavaScript is a dynamically typed language, meaning that variable types are determined at runtime. This flexibility allows for more rapid development but can lead to runtime errors. Python, on the other hand, supports both dynamic and static typing. It allows for dynamic typing but also provides the option to use type annotations for static type checking, which can improve code robustness and maintainability.
Ecosystem and Libraries: JavaScript has a vast ecosystem with a wide range of libraries and frameworks, such as React, Angular, and Node.js. You can build scalable web applications, perform server-side programming, and create cross-platform mobile applications with them. Python also has a rich ecosystem with libraries like NumPy, Pandas, TensorFlow, and Django. It excels in scientific computing, data analysis, machine learning, web development, and automation.
Concurrency and Parallelism: JavaScript is single-threaded, meaning it executes one task at a time. It uses asynchronous programming techniques like callbacks, promises, and async/await to handle concurrency and non-blocking operations effectively. Python, on the other hand, supports both single-threaded and multithreaded programming. It provides a threading module for managing multiple threads and a multiprocessing module for parallel processing, which makes it suitable for CPU-bound and IO-bound tasks.

In summary, JavaScript is primarily used for web development, offers a C-style syntax, and is dynamically typed. It has a strong emphasis on event-driven programming and is well-suited for building interactive web interfaces. Python, on the other hand, is a versatile language with a clean syntax, supports both dynamic and static typing. It excels in scientific computing, data analysis, machine learning, and automation.

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Advice on Python, JavaScript

Thomas

Talent Co-Ordinator at Tessian

Mar 11, 2020

Decided

In December we successfully flipped around half a billion monthly API requests from our Ruby on Rails application to some new Python 3 applications. Our Head of Engineering has written a great article as to why we decided to transition from Ruby on Rails to Python 3! Read more about it in the link below.

263k views263k

Comments

Avy

Apr 8, 2020

Needs adviceon

React Native

Python

Flutter

I've been juggling with an app idea and am clueless about how to build it.

A little about the app:

Social network type app ,
Users can create different directories, in those directories post images and/or text that'll be shared on a public dashboard .

Directory creation is the main point of this app. Besides there'll be rooms(groups),chatting system, search operations similar to instagram,push notifications

I have two options:

@{React Native}|tool:2699|, @{Python}|tool:993|, AWS stack or
@{Flutter}|tool:7180|, @{Go}|tool:1005| ( I don't know what stack or tools to use)

722k views722k

Comments

Ítalo

VP Platform Engineering at Lykon

Feb 19, 2020

Decided

We decided to use python to write our ETLs and import them into metabase via a lambda. Before python we tried using Go, but overall go was way more verbose than Python when writing the ETLs. Go also had some issues managing memory when using the S3 upload manager library. This was a deal breaker for us that made us switch to Python.

In the end the solution was much cleaner and maintainable.

261k views261k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Python	JavaScript
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.	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.
Statistics
GitHub Stars 69.7K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 33.3K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 262.9K	Stacks 392.3K
Followers 205.4K	Followers 284.0K
Votes 6.9K	Votes 8.1K
Pros & Cons
Pros 1186 Great libraries 966 Readable code 848 Beautiful code 789 Rapid development 692 Large community Cons 53 Still divided between python 2 and python 3 28 Performance impact 26 Poor syntax for anonymous functions 22 GIL 20 Package management is a mess	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
Integrations
Django	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Python, JavaScript?

PHP

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

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 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

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 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# (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 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 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

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 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.

Related Comparisons

Language Purpose and Domain: JavaScript is primarily used for web development and runs in web browsers. It is a client-side scripting language that allows dynamic interaction with web pages and enables the creation of interactive user interfaces. Python, on the other hand, is a general-purpose language with a wide range of applications. It is commonly used for web development, scientific computing, data analysis, machine learning, and automation.
Syntax and Readability: JavaScript has a C-style syntax with curly braces and semicolons. It follows an event-driven, imperative programming paradigm. Python, in contrast, emphasizes code readability and uses a clean and elegant syntax with significant whitespace. It enforces code readability by relying on indentation and avoids the use of braces or semicolons.
Typing and Dynamicity: JavaScript is a dynamically typed language, meaning that variable types are determined at runtime. This flexibility allows for more rapid development but can lead to runtime errors. Python, on the other hand, supports both dynamic and static typing. It allows for dynamic typing but also provides the option to use type annotations for static type checking, which can improve code robustness and maintainability.
Ecosystem and Libraries: JavaScript has a vast ecosystem with a wide range of libraries and frameworks, such as React, Angular, and Node.js. You can build scalable web applications, perform server-side programming, and create cross-platform mobile applications with them. Python also has a rich ecosystem with libraries like NumPy, Pandas, TensorFlow, and Django. It excels in scientific computing, data analysis, machine learning, web development, and automation.
Concurrency and Parallelism: JavaScript is single-threaded, meaning it executes one task at a time. It uses asynchronous programming techniques like callbacks, promises, and async/await to handle concurrency and non-blocking operations effectively. Python, on the other hand, supports both single-threaded and multithreaded programming. It provides a threading module for managing multiple threads and a multiprocessing module for parallel processing, which makes it suitable for CPU-bound and IO-bound tasks.

JavaScript vs Python