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JavaScript vs Swift: What are the differences?
JavaScript is a versatile scripting language primarily used for web development, while Swift is Apple's programming language designed for creating macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS applications. Let's explore the key differences between them.
Syntax: JavaScript and Swift have different syntax styles. JavaScript uses curly braces
{}
for code blocks and semicolons;
to separate statements. On the other hand, Swift uses indentation and curly braces for code blocks, but it doesn't require semicolons at the end of each statement. Swift's syntax aims to be more concise and readable.Type Safety: Swift is a statically typed language, meaning variables and constants must have a specific type declaration before they can be used. This provides better type safety and reduces the likelihood of runtime errors. JavaScript, on the other hand, is dynamically typed, allowing variables to hold values of any type without explicit type declaration. This flexibility in JavaScript can lead to potential runtime errors if not handled carefully.
Memory Management: Swift uses Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) for memory management. It automatically tracks and manages the allocation and deallocation of memory for objects. JavaScript, on the other hand, relies on garbage collection, where the JavaScript engine automatically frees up memory that is no longer in use. Swift's ARC approach provides better memory management and predictable performance.
Concurrency Model: Swift has built-in support for concurrency using features like async/await and structured concurrency. It allows developers to write asynchronous code without having to deal with callbacks or promises directly. JavaScript traditionally relied on using callbacks or promises for handling asynchronous operations. Although JavaScript has made progress with the introduction of async/await, Swift's concurrency model provides a more structured and intuitive approach.
Platform Support: JavaScript is primarily used for web development and can run on different platforms like browsers and Node.js. Swift, on the other hand, was initially designed for developing applications for Apple platforms, such as iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. While there are initiatives like Swift for TensorFlow that explore using Swift on other platforms, its widespread adoption remains focused on Apple's ecosystem.
Community and Ecosystem: JavaScript has a large and mature ecosystem with extensive libraries, frameworks, and tools available, thanks to its popularity and time in the market. Swift, being a relatively newer language, has a smaller community, but it is steadily growing. It has a robust ecosystem for Apple platforms, with frameworks like SwiftUI and Combine gaining traction.
In summary, JavaScript is fundamental to front-end web development, offering compatibility across various browsers, while Swift is specialized for Apple platforms, focusing on creating robust and efficient applications for Apple devices.
Hello Devs,
I am planning to implement a ETL test system for checking data quality and business use cases. I am confused on what stack to use. Any advice on the below will be very helpful.
- Any existing frameworks and its source code for help
- Any other stack apart from the mentioned stack (that might be suitable)
- Any ideas for features are welcomed.
- The usage of multiple BE stacks.
If you want to create using Python language, Robot Framework is one very helpful tool to improve your test scripting and we have a lot of methods created by the community. If you want to use Javascript, Cypress in terms of benefits is the better option to create and maintain tests, and run and generate reports in many browsers is really easy with them.
Hello everybody,
I'm Syed, recently graduated from university. I studied C++ as the first programming language and later I have (a little) experience working with C#. I also have a basic understanding of Kotlin, JavaScript and Python. As of today, I am studying Kotlin from https://developer.android.com/.
Please give me some tips about my career. Which language should I choose in today's modern era? Whether I go with Web development or work on Android app development. Thank you for your assistance.
Hi Syed, I wish you all the best. I'm an experienced programmer with more than 15 years of experience. Recently in my company, we were trying to hire a MERN Full-Stack developer and we found many who can code in React but few who were capable of thinking logically and actually able to solve the business problem. Learn any language or package, but keep in mind to learn for a goal. Syntaxes don't matter, we hire to achieve goals. Small to medium companies, usually hire full-stack developers due to the lack of resources. So it would be great to learn the following: For Web, I would suggest "React", and for mobile development, "Flutter" comes in handy with lots of promising future. How about learning both? much better but it's all about you. Good luck!
Hey everyone, I have a matrix chart drawn in HTML5/CSS 3 dominantly using CSS grid. I would like to add interactive features and am unsure about the best tool. My programming knowledge is limited to 2 semesters of Java in college, so I'd have to learn the language as I go. I am open to anything, but the selected languages would be useful in future projects.
Here are the features I am attempting to add to the site linked as my blog:
Assign over 120 attributes each to over 400 elements (probably in a DB)
Procedurally position elements in a matrix chart based on user-inputted filters (filtering and searching)
Procedurally position matrix elements based on attributes weighted by user-input
Change style of elements based on user input (highlighting)
Allow saving matrix chart states to be revisited or shared
Provide a user-friendly interface for users to submit the above input
Build several columns or matrices that are separate but related and seamless to the viewer
PyCharm + Python + Flask + Jinja2 is enough to build web server/ajax and JavaScript + JQuery (maybe React). You can write small easy application but also extreme high scalable application.
I know Java but it need 4x time more code and code is not clear (too much forced use of @decorators) - too complex and takes more memory :)
Remember if you code in Python it is easy to code in Java but if you code in Java you must understand that Python is much more flexible and powerful - also easier to learn.
There are two main facets to interactivity - whether your frontend (Javacsript, HTML, CSS) is programmed to behave dynamically based on events and on any other preprogrammed behavior, and based on what information your server can send and receive and compute for the benefit of your frontend. For the former (a dynamic frontend) you'll need to use Javascript (or Typescript) in some form. For the latter (a server with custom behavior and data endpoints beyond just sending static HTML etc. files), any of the major languages can serve this purpose. However, if you are going to create a dynamic frontend with Javascript and don't know that language at all, then learning it will be a task in itself, and without knowing a backend language well either (probably the case with only two semesters of one language a while back), you ideally don't want to also have to learn a whole other backend language on top of that. That's where NodeJS comes in. It has essentially the same exact syntax as frontend Javascript (just different native libraries). Since you already need to learn Javascript to make the frontend behave dynamically, if you also want a custom backend, NodeJS will spare you a big learning curve on top of the existing learning curve of learning JS. NodeJS is also highly performant for low-compute high-volume requests, i.e. handling a large barrage of requests if each doesn't require a lot of complicated behavior on the backend. A lot of coding bootcamps teach this, commonly called "full stack JS", for this reason - it allows someone to learn a constellation of full stack web development skills from the mastery of one language syntax. NodeJS + ExpressJS is also one of the easiest backend languages + REST API library to use to build a backend. Look up "NodeJS Express Hello World", and you'll be shocked at how easy it is to build a basic server. As far as frontend frameworks go, if this project is very limited in scope, JQuery could be fine, but I'd highly recommend learning React for something more involved - it will be immensely easier to manage and maintain, and generally lends itself to much better and more intuitive code organization. Its use of components will also be somewhat familiar and intuitive from the object oriented programming you learned through Java. Create React App is great tool to use, especially when first learning React, to avoid all of the finicky nonsense in configuring transpilation etc.
React is hands-down the tool I recommend to add interactivity to your matrix. Because it is Javascript, it will leverage a lot of the formatting from Java. Python would be very foreign to you. React shines in allowing you to use OOP principles within the JavaScript language and it is really powerful, fast and browser friendly.
Use Javascript alongwith HTML CSS and you have complete set of application ready (even for future for PWA or bundled applications).
You can use charts.js library https://www.chartjs.org/ or https://apexcharts.com/javascript-chart-demos/. You can find many examples, you can have a look at https://codepen.io/ksarpotdar/pen/NWyqqZM?editors=0010
Ok. Clearly you forgot the best tool to give for interactive features. JavaScript! In particular I recommend the freeCodeCamp JavaScript course. Here it is.
I am unhappy. When doing my research, I heard Python is useless. Data science is an unworthy field thanks to TensorFlow, and web scraping has also become pointless since the introduction of the PWA. Since PWAs are only frontend, I feel forced to learn JavaScript, and to ditch Python. I love Python with all my mind, it's simplicity, conciseness, and easiness as a tool. Here are a few questions:
- Should I forget Python and move on?
- Are there any PWA alternatives to JavaScript/TypeScript. I've been thinking of using Python for WASM and use HTML+CSS for the DOM to create the PWA. Is this possible?
- Why is JavaScript such a pain in the butt
- What's the point of me learning Python if it's not useful for web development?
You should not ditch or forget Python because of what you hear or because of one particular project. It's probably going to stay relevant and useful for the coming 20 years. If you're a programmer, you should however be prepared to use several tools, and programming languages are just part of the toolbox (like HTML or CSS, but also your IDE, powershell, linux commands, etc.) It's not for nothing that this site is called "stackshare".
Python is great for data science but it's not very performant and eats up loads of resources. I recommend that you give Go a go. It's easy to learn and very fast!
JavaScript is reduced Python. Python is powerful. If Python is not powerful you can mix it with C/C++ - this is not available in JavaScript in easy way. I am programmer and electrical engineer too - I think for research Python is the best thing. JavaScript is better for Web. I code in both very good.
Python is definitely not useless, It has a ton of usecases, with a huge community behind it, but not that performant and consumes lots of resources, I don't think you should abandon it, and PWA is kind a in its early stage, so I doubt that there will be any language better than js for developing it any time soon, so I guess there are no alternatives, but I guess you will like js/ts if you spend a little more time playing with it, and the same goes for wasm it is also in its early stage, and i guess web assembly and rust will be used a lot for that, and lets say you have built a frontend web app , now with the help of python + django or flask you can write server code, and learn a little bit about databases, then bravo you are a full stack dev.
Hey I'm currently an undergraduate in computer science for almost 5 years now, still left with a few courses before I complete. I know that I'm not good at programming but still I choose developer based programming career approach, I have made plans to start my career in websites, etc, for that, I have purchased books related to HTML5, CSS , JavaScript. I'm currently learning HTML5 and CSS only and after this some JavaScript I am really confident in my decision but would love to know what an expert developer advice thanks in advance.
Whatever you do don't go WordPress path. Developers over-there tend to ignore system limitations and hardcode and overengineer their solutions so as to please their clients. If you are a beginner probably you'll get to work on someone else's shitty code and will be asked by your boss to do "yet another impossible thing with Wordpress". And... Probably... You'll do it.
My suggestion is: think in stacks and don't start too low. Starting with HTML, CSS3 and JavaScript is too low. Start on higher levels and with something practical. You'll have time for basics some time later and it would be much easier, because you'll see those technologies are compliment to what you do and not your main objective.
My suggestion for you:
- Android Mobile App Development path (complex enough so you won't get bored)
- All things web3 crypto, nft, virtual reality, blockchain path (has tons of computing web development tasks)
- Cloud computing setup and administration path (good, because you say you're not good at programming)
- Artificial intelligence and automation (this is future, people need this)
I've also found it helpful to think of each stack as a surface (find Google Images "radar chart") . Every time you try to learn something new you start in the center, with all technology-points overlapping. You are as low as you can get and you know nothing. Your job is to expand outwards each technology so as to make a stack-surace. The more surface the better. You'll see that some technological-aspects are easier to expand than others and plan your time accordingly.
Have a good start!
You can also try starting with one of the big marketing agencies. Even if you don't feel like you're ready to start as a web developer (you likely are, though, they hire at all levels) you can start as a content author or similar supporting role until you're more comfortable, then transition into a development role within the same company when you're ready.
I would recommend you to learn these quickly and get on learning a good front-end framework like Vue, ReactJs, Svelte. Pick up real world projects not just learn from books. Always keep learning about the new technologies used to develop things because IT Web development tools and their approach is growing faster than ever, you have got to keep up with those new techs and tools. Final advise, open any job portal, find your targeted job and see what requirements are their.
I don't believe that you are confident about your decision to follow a career path as a developer. This migh be your department's fault and not necessarily yours. Most good developers are already working as developers at that age. Although your current status states that you are an intern you are struggling to find a good starting point. Since you are interested in website developmnet you can start learning programming using a mainstream CMS such as wordpress. Do you know how many companies and self employed guys make their living by customizing wordpess? But if you want to step out of the crowd then seek for junior jobs on a fintech or on a vertical market such as travel or betting. Search for online job oportunities and find out what technologies these guys use then take an online course and start learning the language. Within a month or two apply for a job as a junior and use as reference the online course.
JavaScript is an ever growing technology with lots of opportunities and great depth for both front end and back end development. I would say that JavaScript is a safe bet in terms of furthering your career as a developer in 2022 and beyond. There’s lots of tools and frameworks based on this language that you would have to make decisions on which ones you want to become an expert. I recommend you follow interesting people that you admire to draw inspiration from. Such as Ben Awad or Jeff Delaney. Check this web page recommended to me by the latter on his YouTube channel “Fireship”: https://2021.stateofjs.com/en-US/resources/
JS + HTML + CSS only tackles the front-end of programming. I suggest you can start to learn by finding an open API related to something you love and then creating a website for it. (E.g. movies, documentaries, music, whatever you are into) Also you can do this dude's tutorials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtKciwk_si4
Later on, when you've already one a few projects, start to learn the backend side of things (database + whatever you want - C#, Python...)
this article might help you. Web development is a combination of skills. not only developing skills but also SEO and other stuff. codehub.lk/web-development-skills-you-must-have/
I am about to complete my graduation with a computer science background. I want to pursue my career in software development. My front-end knowledge is very poor. I didn't like PHP so I didn't go for Laravel. My university offers a course on ASP.NET, I liked C# that's why I took asp.net. But now I think .net tech is unnecessarily complicated and most of the job offers available for .net are not for freshers. Should I try js and Node.js now? I mean as a fresher which tech stack should I choose for web development(Backend)?
Just don't .NET
. It was a failed idea from the start. Node and javascript are easier to learn, with much wider adoption, and more active communities.
.NET
is an old experiment in using a markup language to separate the UI from the business logic. The idea was that this would allow a small team of hyper-competent engineers to build the tooling and code for a large team of less-skilled front-end developers to leverage. In practice, leveraging that customized UI markup requires understanding and adjusting the underlying code. The result is that any UI change requires a hyper-competent .NET engineer.
However, many larger companies bought into it a long time ago, and now have a hard dependency on old monolithic .NET ecosystems, and they do need .NET developers to maintain them.
So, you can get a well paying .NET job without much difficulty. However, you'll neither like it, nor be doing anything interesting. There's no growth here, only a very long slow death of .NET (that'll probably take another 20 years).
Node and Javascript are sticking around, and still growing.
What I can see, you are confusing yourself, if you studied .Net now it's better to work as .Net developer, and you will find opportunities as fresh. Just search and don't waste your time. After you get more experience in .Net, then you can learn NodeJS if you still need to learn it.
Hey guys, I learned the basics (OOP, data structures & some algorithms) with Python, but now I want to learn iOS development. I am considering to learn Swift, but I am afraid how the native mobile development will die out because of the cross-platform frameworks and reviews. My idea is to learn web development first and then learn React Native, and after all of that, finally Swift. What do you think about this roadmap? Should I just learn Swift first due to the pros of the native apps?
Native apps are not going to die. Especially not Swift because now Swift can be used to develop cross platform macOS and iOS apps due to the new macs having M1 chips.
If asking about employment opportunities, native will never die out. There will always be opportunity for work in native mobile applications. There are also many advantages of using native over cross platform such as always having access to the latest APIs and developer libraries that may not be available to cross-platform without some native development involved or can wait until someone develops a bridge for you.
If you are asking about what you should develop with first? It really depends. React-Native is great for building proto-types or basic MVP application that doesn't require any of the latest and greatest features Apple has to offer at the moment. But if you're asking what to learn? I would say native will always give you a larger advantage as it will give you a good foundation in mobile development and provide you access to the latest native libraries. It is also a useful skill that can give you an edge in cross-platform mobile like react-native because you will most definitely encounter a situation where you will have to go down to the to native side to extend functionality or utilize APIs that are not yet out of the box.
"Should I just learn Swift first due to the pros of the native apps?".
React Native builds Native Apps. Technologies like ionic
does NOT build native apps, but React Native does it.
Learning Swift seems to be a really bad idea from my point of view. Learning JavaScript is all what you need. Why? Because then Frontend, Backend, and Mobile Dev, is simple, because it's all JavaScript.
I would suggest to bet more on Swift! I have developed act in React and Javascript in the past and played around with Swift a little... the performances of native code vs Javascript are way too slow compared to swift native app!
Now even more than ever M1 chip will give a boost, but if it gives a boost to JS it will give a boost also to native apps. I would seriously consider Swift more than Javascript, React or even Electron!
The decision comes down to your goals and needs.
If you want to be able to create any kind of iOS app, simple or complex, learn Swift. It's indispensable if you're building specialised apps like video editing, augmented reality, machine learning or anything that uses iOS-specific APIs such as App Clips.
But if you just want to create apps that make HTTP requests and display static content such as text or basic video and music, React Native would do just fine, and you can publish the same code to Android. This is a no-brainer choice if you're on a low budget.
And if you know both, you can use both in the same app. You can add React Native screens or components inside a Swift app.
Mobile Native Development Apps will never die. Cross Plataform like React Native only exists to save time and costs for startups mainly, which is extraordinary, and indispensable often of course. But when the App get popular enough, it will probably will move to Native Development. Several improvements.
Less than 20% of the market is IOS, the rest is Android. Any developer must produce for Android and maybe support IOS. If you prototype on IOS you have to restart again for Android. React and JavaScript will run on IOS.
As a startup, we need the maximum flexibility and the ability to reach our customers in a more suitable way. So a hybrid application approach is the best because it allows you to develop a cross-platform application in a unique codebase. The choice behind Ionic is Angular, I think that angular is the best framework to develop a complex application that needs a lot of service interaction, its modularity forces you (the developer) to write the code in the correct way, so it can be maintainable and reusable.
Pros of JavaScript
- Can be used on frontend/backend1.7K
- It's everywhere1.5K
- Lots of great frameworks1.2K
- Fast898
- Light weight745
- Flexible425
- You can't get a device today that doesn't run js392
- Non-blocking i/o286
- Ubiquitousness237
- Expressive191
- Extended functionality to web pages55
- Relatively easy language49
- Executed on the client side46
- Relatively fast to the end user30
- Pure Javascript25
- Functional programming21
- Async15
- Full-stack13
- Setup is easy12
- Future Language of The Web12
- Its everywhere12
- Because I love functions11
- JavaScript is the New PHP11
- Like it or not, JS is part of the web standard10
- Expansive community9
- Everyone use it9
- Can be used in backend, frontend and DB9
- Easy9
- Most Popular Language in the World8
- Powerful8
- Can be used both as frontend and backend as well8
- For the good parts8
- No need to use PHP8
- Easy to hire developers8
- Agile, packages simple to use7
- Love-hate relationship7
- Photoshop has 3 JS runtimes built in7
- Evolution of C7
- It's fun7
- Hard not to use7
- Versitile7
- Its fun and fast7
- Nice7
- Popularized Class-Less Architecture & Lambdas7
- Supports lambdas and closures7
- It let's me use Babel & Typescript6
- Can be used on frontend/backend/Mobile/create PRO Ui6
- 1.6K Can be used on frontend/backend6
- Client side JS uses the visitors CPU to save Server Res6
- Easy to make something6
- Clojurescript5
- Promise relationship5
- Stockholm Syndrome5
- Function expressions are useful for callbacks5
- Scope manipulation5
- Everywhere5
- Client processing5
- What to add5
- Because it is so simple and lightweight4
- Only Programming language on browser4
- Test1
- Hard to learn1
- Test21
- Not the best1
- Easy to understand1
- Subskill #41
- Easy to learn1
- Hard 彤0
Pros of Swift
- Ios259
- Elegant180
- Not Objective-C126
- Backed by apple107
- Type inference93
- Generics61
- Playgrounds54
- Semicolon free49
- OSX38
- Tuples offer compound variables36
- Clean Syntax24
- Easy to learn24
- Open Source22
- Beautiful Code21
- Functional20
- Dynamic12
- Linux12
- Protocol-oriented programming11
- Promotes safe, readable code10
- No S-l-o-w JVM9
- Explicit optionals8
- Storyboard designer7
- Optionals6
- Type safety6
- Super addicting language, great people, open, elegant5
- Best UI concept5
- Its friendly4
- Highly Readable codes4
- Fail-safe4
- Powerful4
- Faster and looks better4
- Swift is faster than Objective-C4
- Feels like a better C++4
- Easy to learn and work3
- Much more fun3
- Protocol extensions3
- Native3
- Its fun and damn fast3
- Strong Type safety3
- Easy to Maintain3
- Protocol as type2
- All Cons C# and Java Swift Already has2
- Esay2
- MacOS2
- Type Safe2
- Protocol oriented programming2
- Can interface with C easily1
- Actually don't have to own a mac1
- Free from Memory Leak1
- Swift is easier to understand for non-iOS developers.1
- Numbers with underbar1
- Optional chain1
- Great for Multi-Threaded Programming1
- Runs Python 8 times faster1
- Objec1
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Cons of JavaScript
- A constant moving target, too much churn22
- Horribly inconsistent20
- Javascript is the New PHP15
- No ability to monitor memory utilitization9
- Shows Zero output in case of ANY error8
- Thinks strange results are better than errors7
- Can be ugly6
- No GitHub3
- Slow2
- HORRIBLE DOCUMENTS, faulty code, repo has bugs0
Cons of Swift
- Must own a mac6
- Memory leaks are not uncommon2
- Very irritatingly picky about things that’s1
- Complicated process for exporting modules1
- Its classes compile to roughly 300 lines of assembly1
- Is a lot more effort than lua to make simple functions1
- Overly complex options makes it easy to create bad code0