Python vs Java | What's Difference?

In this tutorial, we will understand the key difference between Python vs Java. Let’s begin first with the brief introduction and then will understand the difference between them.

Introduction to Python

Python is a very popular high-level, general-purpose, dynamic, interpreted, and object-oriented programming language.

Guido Rossum developed it in 1989 at the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands. It is derived from various popular languages, such as C, C++, Smalltalk, Unix-shell, Modula-3, and Algol-68.

Guido van Rossum released the first version of the Python code in Feb 1991. Python provides a simple programming structure, a few keywords, clearly defined and easy to use syntax. Therefore, it is easy to read, write, and learn for beginners and is also the first choice of most programmer today.

Today, most of the major companies, such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Netflix, Reddit, Facebook, etc., are using Python for developing various applications.

Introduction to Java

Java is a powerful, versatile, secure, object-oriented, and simple, full-featured, general-purpose programming language. It is one of the most widely used high-level programming languages in the world.

James Gosling originally developed it at Sun Microsystems in 1995. Java inherits its simple syntax from the C language and several object-oriented features from C++.

The latest version of Java Standard Edition is 18. It is now a very popular programming language for developing software applications on web servers.

Now, let’s see the difference between Python vs Java and understand also those reasons why Python is the preferable choice of the programmers over other popular languages like Java.

Key Difference between Python and Java

There are many differences between Python and Java programming languages that are as follows:

1. Development

James Gosling developed the Java programming language at Sun Microsystems and then acquired it by Oracle Corporation and released it in 1995.
Guido Van Rossum developed the Python programming language in 1989 at Centrum Wiskunde and Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands.

2. Latest version

The latest version of Python programming language is 3.10.0, published in Oct 2021.
The latest version of Java Standard Edition is 18, released on March 22, 2022.

3. Compilation

The Java language compiles the source code with the help of the Java compiler and converts it into the bytecode. It does not convert the source code into native bytecode.
On the other hand, Python automatically compiles the source code into a native bytecode with the help of the Python interpreter at runtime and provides the advantages of optimization.

4. Typed

Python is a dynamically typed language. While coding in Python, it is not required to declare the type of variable. It makes the Python easy to write and read, but it’s difficult to analyze.
Java is a statically typed language. In Java, all the variables along with their data types are required to be declared explicitly.

5. Writing style

Both Python and Java follow different coding styles. Java uses the curly braces to specify the beginning and end of the block.
Whereas Python uses indentation (white spaces) to make the beginning and end of blocks. It makes the code neat and clean. It also uses indentation for the execution of code.

6. Lines of code

The Java program contains more lines of code, whereas the Python program is three to five times shorter than the equivalent Java program. For example, suppose we want to print “Hello world” in Java; then we will write the code like this:

Java program to print Hello world.
public class HelloWorld {
public static void main(String[] args) 
{
    System.out.println("Hello world");
 }
}

Whereas, when we write the same program in Python, then we need to write one line of code for the same task. Look at the below code:

print('Hello World')

7. Garbage collector

Java uses an automatic garbage collector to manage memory.
Whereas, in Python, garbage collection is performed with reference counting and supports mark and sweep garbage collection.

8. Container objects

Java container objects like ArrayList and LinkedList consist of objects of generic type.
On the other hand, Python container objects like lists and dictionaries can consist of objects of any type, including numbers and lists.

9. Complex numbers

Java language does not support complex numbers.
On the other side, Python supports double-precision complex numbers.

10. Array

Java supports both fixed-size and dynamic-size arrays.
On the other hand, Python supports double-precision complex numbers.

11. Semicolon

Java uses a semicolon to end the statement.
On the other side, Python is ended with a newline, and we use a semicolon as secondary statement separator.

12. Word size

Java does not support word size. It supports the signed 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit integers.
Python does not support word-size int (signed). It does not support the signed 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit integers.

13. Class

In Java, every class has to be defined in its own file.
Whereas, in Python, we can define multiple classes in a single file.

14. Speed

Java takes more time to develop an application because it is a statically typed language. Therefore, it is slower than Python.
Since Python is a dynamically typed language, it makes the development process fast. As a result, Python developers can develop an application in the right time, lowering down the cost of development.

15. Mobile application

The development of Android applications is mostly done with the help of Java and XML. However, there are some libraries like Kivy that can be used along with the Python code for making it compatible for Android development.

In this tutorial, you have learned about the basic difference between Python vs Java. I hope that you will have understood the basic points of difference between Python and Java.

Python vs Java | What’s Difference?

Introduction to Python

Introduction to Java