As a beginner, you start with one programming language and get your hands dirty in it. But when you start working on a variety of applications, you learn more than one programming language as a developer. Today, there are many programming language options for you to choose from. If you are starting your programming career or learning a programming language, then it is wise to know one of the mainstream and established programming languages. This will help you stay relevant at the competitive edge in the programming domain. In this article, I will discuss the few most popular programming languages with their pros (advantages) and cons (disadvantages). So, let’s get started.
Go Programming
Go is also known as GoLang, and it is a programming language developed by Robert Griesemer, Ken Thompson, and Rob Pike. It is an open-source language that makes it easy to create simple, secure, and productive software.
Pros of Go Programming
- Go syntax is small compared to other languages, and it is easy to learn.
- The programming language design is built for fast compilation in mind from the beginning.
- It creates only one executable file output after the compilation without any dependencies so that you can upload it anywhere, which go supports and just run it.
- Testing support is built into the standard library, and there is no need for an extra dependency as go has no virtual machine.
- It can compile directly to the machine code.
Cons of Go Programming
- There is no major framework for GoLang developers.
- Go programs require function to return an error, if there might be an error expected, this may cause a problem where the track of the error is lost which leads to missing useful error handling logic.
- Go does not have generics.
C#
C# is an object-oriented programming language produced by Microsoft led by Anders Hegelsberg and his team members within the .NET Initiative.
Pros of C#
- C# is easy to learn and can support modern functionality.
- C# language is an object-oriented programming language, so oops makes development and maintenance easier as compared to procedure-oriented programming language.
- C# is very fast. Its compilation and execution time is too quick.
- It supports automatic garbage collection.
Cons of C#
- C# is completely based on Microsoft .Net framework. Your machine has to install the .NET framework to run your application. Well, this is the reason why this is not a flexible language.
PHP
PHP is a popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to web development. It was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994.
Pros of PHP
- The most important advantage of PHP is that it is open-source and free of cost, it can be downloaded anywhere and readily available to use for the development of web applications.
- The tools, features, and code snippets provided by PHP frameworks help developers accelerate custom web application development.
- The PHP frameworks simplify web application development and maintenance by supporting model view controller architecture to divide a web application into models, views, and controllers.
- It has powerful library support to use the different function modules for data representation.
Cons of PHP
- It is not that secure because it is open-source as the source code can be easily available.
- PHP lacks debugging tools that are needed to search for errors and warnings.
- PHP has fewer number of debugging tools when compared to other programming languages.
- Using more features of PHP framework and tools leads to poor performance of the web applications.
C/C++
C is a middle-level programming language developed by Dennis Ritchie. C is one of the oldest languages that cannot be replaced by any other language as it is the core of every machine. C++ is an extension to the c programming language designed by Bjarne Stroustrup.
Pros of C/C++
- C is a good option for embedded devices and system-level code.
- C++ is a top choice for developing gaming, networking, and server-side applications.
- C language has formed the basis for many languages.
- C program is basically a collection of functions that the C library supports, and this makes it easier to add our own functions to the C library.
Cons of C/C++
- The errors or the bugs are not detected after each line of code, instead the compiler shows all the errors after writing the program while compiling the code.
- Various anomalies and bugs can occur, exception handling allows you to catch the error and take appropriate responses, however, C does not exhibit this important feature.
Java
Java is a popular programming language designed by James Gosling. Java is commonly used for creating web and mobile applications.
Pros of Java
- Java was designed to be easy to use, write, compile, debug and learn. In other programming languages, this notion implies a programming language to be much like human language rather than a machine one, it should be easy and straightforward to write, read and maintain.
- Programming in Java is centered on creating the objects, manipulating the objects, and making the objects work together, so Java helps you to create modular programs and reusable code.
- Java is the first programming language to include security as an integral part of the design.
- Java offers various APIs for application Development.
Cons of Java
- It is significantly slower and more memory-consuming than natively compiled languages such as C or C++.
- The default look and feel of graphical user interface applications written in java using the swing toolkit is very different from native applications.
JavaScript
JavaScript is one of the core technologies of the world wide web designed by Brendan Eich. JavaScript enables interactive web pages and is an essential part of web applications.
Pros of JavaScript
- Client-side JavaScript is very fast as it can be run quickly in the client-side browser.
- JavaScript is used everywhere on the web.
- JavaScript is relatively simple to learn.
- JavaScript can be used to create features like drag and drop in components which greatly enhance the user interface and experience of a website.
- JavaScript is client-side reduces the demand on servers.
Cons of JavaScript
- JavaScript is explicitly added to web pages and client browsers, it can exploit user’s system. So malicious code can be executed on a client machine.
- JavaScript is interpreted differently by different browsers, the browser does not show any error, it is difficult for the developer to detect the problem.
- Anyone can read the JavaScript code and reuse it.
Python
Python is a general-purpose cross-platform programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python can be used for web and desktop applications, GUI-based desktop applications, machine learning, data science, and network servers.
Pros of Python
- The most important advantage of Python is that it is open-source and free of cost.
- It is easy to read and easy to learn. It is easier to write a program in Python than in C or C++.
- It provides large standard libraries that include the areas like string operations, internet web service tools, operating system interfaces, and protocols, easy to develop web services by invoking cobra components.
- It has powerful control capabilities, as it calls directly through C, C++, or Java via Jython.
Cons of Python
- Python code is executed line by line, it often results in slow execution.
- Python’s database access layer is primitive and underdeveloped.
- The python programming language uses a large amount of memory.
Final Thoughts
So now you have a basic understanding of different programming languages on a high level with their advantages and disadvantages. Different programming languages are suitable in different scenarios, so go ahead and choose the programming language which suits your domain and the kind of applications you would like to work on.
