Five Things You Need to Know about Major Programming Languages
Programming is everywhere now in today’s digital era, shaping our whole life, work, how we communicate, our entertainment, and so much more, and this is because of programmers. With the rapid rate at which technology is improving and innovating, there has been a demand for programming skills. Everyone wants to learn how to program! After all, understanding how to program will open up many opportunities for everyone. Computers use millions of different programming languages to know how to work and what to do. This guide will dive into the five most popular programming languages: Python, Java, JavaScript, C++, and Swift. As each language has its syntax and purpose, we will discover the unique features of each programming language, its applications, and its impact.
Python: The language of simplicity
Python is known for its readability, connecting simplicity with this language’s power. It was released to the public in 1991 and made by Guido Van Russom. His main objective for Python was that users had an easy time understanding and reading the line of code in Python. This made it faster for programmers to develop as well.
Python was based on the English alphabet, and because of this, it allows users to have a better understanding of it. This is beneficial for beginners and high-level programmers as the simplicity of this language’s syntax allows programmers to code without having much to worry about, like bugs.
It is widely used. Thus, it comes with multiple libraries and frameworks for web development. Frameworks are like packets for programmers to speed up their development process. Because of Python’s big community, it also has many open-sourced libraries. A library is very similar to frameworks but is simpler and less complex as it focuses on allowing users to have solutions to many problems that occur in everyday programming. This is due to the large community it has. You can find online support with Python anywhere; you can visit python.org with any questions. Furthermore, one of Python’s strengths is being versatile. Python can be used in web development, machine learning or artificial intelligence, data analysis, and so much more because of its simplicity.
JavaScript: Powering the web
JavaScript is often known as a secret spice in a chef’s spice, as it allows the web to be interactive and more engaging for users. JavaScript was made by Brendan Eich in 1995. In 1995, Microsoft and Netscape had a browser war for dominance over the internet, as these two were the most powerful at the time. Brendan Eich was given ten days to create a script for his company; he created Mocha within those ten days. Mocha was then renamed to JavaScript in the future and was turned into a commonly used programming language, although that wasn’t Brendan Eich’s initial objective for it. Now, JavaScript is used to modify languages to make it interactive and a responsive web for users.
JavaScript’s primary goal is web development, where it can edit DOM (document object model). The DOM is a conjunction between the web documents. It serves as the face of the online document, allowing other programs to adjust the page’s design, structure, and content, enabling programming languages to interact with the page. In many cases, the web document is displayed through an HTML source; DOM will act like an HTML structure but allow it to be manipulated by JavaScript. It will enhance user experience by responding to user actions/inputs and creating animations or real-time updates, enabling users to interact with a web page.
One way that JavaScript enhances user experience so that it stands out is its asynchronous programming paradigm. This allows the program to work on multiple things at once without blocking its main thread. Instead of waiting for the program to finish one task, it may start various tasks and do them at once; it is efficient and essential for a high-performance web design! Traditional programming languages will have synchronous programming, which does one step at a time. This causes the program not to run and causes the user to wait an amount of time while it goes and fetches data from another database. Asynchronous programming will run multiple tasks simultaneously so that the program does not appear frozen to users.
Like Python, JavaScript has a large ecosystem, meaning a ton of frameworks and libraries for JavaScript users to use! Their extensive collection of frameworks and libraries, such as React.js and more, allows users to speed through problems in coding and promptly develop quick programs! These frameworks allow users to reduce the amount of code,
Some of the most prominent frameworks in JavaScript are React and Angular, making it easier for programmers to build hard and complex applications.
JavaScript has excellent cross-platform compatibility! JavaScript is the ideal choice for developing web applications that spread across multiple platforms because it uses a framework called Election.js. This makes it so JavaScript can work on different devices despite the other systems.
As mentioned, JavaScript was not initially developed for web development but simply a scripting language for a company that wanted to win a browser war. However, because JavaScript has begun to gain popularity because of its power, it evolved. The first major update was in 2015. It was called ES6 and came with more syntax, functions, modules, and more. Beyond this, JavaScript has evolved from a simple web page developer into different technology fields. It went from modifying web pages to making things like your fridge interactive and so much more. JavaScript was a simple language that now is a rich language that impacts our digital world significantly.
Java: The king of programming languages
Java is known for its independent programming. Java is an object-oriented programming language created by James Gosling in 1995. It is a simple programming language with syntax similar to C++. Java was made simple, resilient, secure, high-performance, portable, multi-threaded, interpreted, dynamic, etc. Java is used in games, internet programming, and so much more.
WJava’snce, Run anywhere (WORA) is Java’s token to the Hall of Fame for programming languages. This means that Java can run on any platform without having to rewrite the programming, making it easy for programmers to develop applications through different platforms like Windows and macOS. This is due to something called Java Virtual Machine (JVM). JVM is an interpreter. It takes the history of programming, compiling and interpreting, and combining it. JVM runs Java bytecode. Any Java file is turned into Java Bytecode. JVM will then interpret that bytecode and run it on different platforms. Bytecode is a set of instructions.
Java uses Objective-Oriented Programming (OOP). OOP’s main objective is to combine data and functions so that no other function can use that data because it is unnecessary. OOP has reusability and maintainability in software development, with concepts such as encapsulation or inheritance allowing developers to develop huge, complicated applications. Encapsulation is an organizer; it separates or hides data from other data. It is called data hiding. Inheritance is a class getting data from different classes so that the user does not have to rewrite all of the functions but can add on. There are more concepts in OOP, but the main objective of OOP is to make it easier for users to build big and complicated systems or applications.
Furthermore, Java is a secure programming language. It is a language that has Strong typing language, which means that its architecture has many factors like cryptography, authentication, and more. This indicates that Java is strategically written in a certain way so that all of your code will fit perfectly together; this reduces the number of errors in Java code. Because of this, before Java runs its code, it turns it into bytecode and then goes into the output; this is compile time, which is when code is turned into maJavae code, like bytecode, because Java has JVM. Java’s cryptography is the base of its security; its cartography is the framework that Java uses to enable its security. The same is valid with Java authentication because Java has modules, and users can secure their development with these frameworks or models.
Java is the king of programming languages. It is widely used. Its community is significant, and you can find help online. Therefore, Java also has many frameworks and libraries to use. Because of its community, it has more ways to be secure and scalable for programmers to use on their web development. You can find videos like this one and many more!
C++: Balance between power and efficiency
C++ is known for its power and its efficiency. It was made by Bjane Stroupstrup at AT&T Bell Labs in 1976 to be used for everything. He enjoyed a programming language called Simula and created C (the old name for C++) with features that he liked in Simula. C was called C with classes and was renamed C++ by Rick Mascitti in 1986 as it was widely known then and would become a standard language for its power and convenience!
C++ was powerful because of how efficient it was. The code that programmers would write would be turned into machine code so that the computer could understand and execute it faster. This allowed programmers to develop at a faster speed. C++ is also efficient because its low-level control systems enable users to control the hardware linked to their coding. This means that users control what goes into the computer’s memory and how it can be organized, or they can have control over CPU registers and hardware devices.
C++ is an object-oriented Java programming language (like Java). This means that it has a lot of functionalities and can be used for many different things. C++ OOP includes things like polymorphism and inheritance. Like Java, C++ has more functionality in its OOP, such as abstraction. This highlights the crucial details to the programmer, and they’re shown the trivial units that are not essential. C++ also has examples of classes being used in C++. Classes are helpful for users to develop as they could be utilized as templates.
Like many popular programming languages, C++ also has an extensive library. This is called Standard Template Library (STL). C++ is quite popular among programmers, developers, and coders. Thus, there are many templates available online in its library! These libraries are filled with functions that any programmer may need for any development process.
C++’s memory management is dynamic memory allocation, which means that users can allocate memory in the heap — unused memory. This indicates that the program will create space for new things while running without users having to go back and recode or find that unused memory!
C++ is not platform-independent. If C++ were written in an operating system (like Windows), you would have to recompile it to run it on a different operating system (like macOS). It can still run on multiple systems, but you must recompile it. Despite this, c++ is still portable enough to use across different platforms with some modification. It is more platform-independent than Java programming languages like Java, but it has enough platform independence.
Swift: Apple’s innovation
Swift is a new modern language made by Apple in 2014. Swift was made by Chris Lattner (creator of Clang and LLVM). He was doing some project on the C programming language family, was tired of it, and decided there was a better way out there. He collaborated with Bertrand Serlket and the Apple software team to develop Swift. It was designed to be robust, easy to learn, and eloquent. Swift is used for IOS and platforms like macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Swift became Apple’s number one choice for developing within Apple.
Unlike all of the programming languages listed above, Swift is new; thus, it is unknown to many people but has many strong points. Swift was built with a focus on its security and performance. Swift has a modern and straightforward syntax, making it more secure because it is easy to read and less prone to bugs. When you compare Swift to programming languages like C++, it is safe because of the difference between Swift and Objective C syntax.
Eliminates unsafe code to catch bugs before releasing the project to users. Swift is also known for its automated managed memory, which uses automatic reference counting (ARC). ARC tracks your app’s memory, so it holds variables or constants in one place and will not be relocated for users. Swift is also vital because it competes with Objective C, which has a strong history!
Swift was made because Chris Lattner was tired of Objective C (a superfamily of C languages). Despite this, Swift and Objective C work well together, allowing users to transition smoothly from Objective C to Swift through frameworks. Because Apple used to use Objective C and now uses Swift as its primary language, both work hand in hand so that new and existing Apple developers will quickly adapt to Swift. It supports many core concepts in objective C, but it does it in a way that makes it safer for the language (less prone to bugs).
When Swift was released, it was not open-sourced until 2015, which supported libraries, debuggers, and more. This allowed developers everywhere to evolve and develop Swift as a community. This means that Swift can build a big community with large amounts of frameworks and libraries like the other major programming languages. Not only is it open to make Swift better with different people worldwide, but it is also opening up its cross-platform! Swift supports Apple platforms, but it has been working to expand to more platforms! Swift is building its community rapidly and is on its way to making it to the major programming languages with the support it already has and will have shortly!
Swift was made with performance as its objective. Swift is relatively fast because the syntax is easier to read and write, and less code is needed to perform a desired output. An example of this is when the Lyft app was rewritten using Swift. The code went from 75,000 lines to a third of that portion. Another one of Swift’s features is the Playground environment. The playground allows users to interact and experiment with code while developers can write and test Swift code and see the results as quickly as a snap. Swift’s playground accelerates prototyping due to its immediate feedback loop. Swift has improved the development workflow and supported programmers or developers in creating projects that satisfy their users.
Final Thoughts
In this guide, we have gone into the nitty gritty of all the unique features and capabilities that Python, JavaScript, Java, C++, and Swift have. Python’s simplicity to Java’s independence, JavaScript empowerment. C++ low-level control and Swift’s rapid prototyping are tools developers use to help people worldwide share the same goal: to build, develop solutions, and shape the world with their technology. As our world grows, so does our technology, which will drive our world into a better place than it is now.