What is the difference between Java and JavaScript and which one should you choose?

When a newbie programmer hears about Java vs JavaScript for the first time, he might assume that both programming languages are the same as both consist of Java in their names.

In this article, we will talk about Java vs Javascript, which one to choose, their use cases, and much more. But first, we will start with what a programming language is!

Let’s dive in.

What is a programming language?

When we talk with one another, we use a language like English or Hindi to communicate. But, we can’t use English or Hindi to communicate with a computer. Computers don’t understand our languages. Therefore, we communicate with computers using a language known as a programming language.

We use programming languages to give instructions to a computer.

What is Java?

Java is a general-purpose programming language mainly used for Android development, back-end development, etc.

We will go through how Java evolved, its features, its functioning, a sample Java program, etc.

Many large companies use Java in their tech stack. Some of them are – Uber, Paypal, Tesla, Twitter, Minecraft, Nasa, and so on.

Evolution of Java

Java started as a project in 1991 under the leadership of James gosling at Sun Microsystems along with his team, known as the green team. The goal of this project was to create something for electronic gadgets like televisions. James first dubbed it green talk and it had a .gt file extension.

As the national tree of many nations at the time and a symbol of power, the name was then altered to oak. But because oak was a registered trademark of Oak Technologies, they were forced to alter the name to Java in 1995.

Java was ranked among the top ten innovations of 1995 by Time magazine. Sun Microsystems got acquired by Oracle in 2010, So Java became a part of Oracle.

In January 1996, the first official version of Java was released, also known as JDK 1.0.

Multiple versions were released in the upcoming years.

Today, as of 2022, the latest version of Java is Java 19.

The file extension of Java is .java

Features of Java

• Java works on the principle of write once, running anywhere
• Java is platform-independent:- we can run Java code on any platform i.e., windows, Linux, mac os, android, and so on
• Java is robust:- java is robust (strong), because it puts a lot of effort into finding errors as early as possible, uses strong memory management, lacks pointers and automatic garbage collection
• Java supports multithreading:- Java can run multiple threads simultaneously. this feature is helpful when we are developing games where we need multiple threads to run at the same time, we can’t wait for one thread to complete and then execute another thread
• Java also supports object-oriented programming
• Java is portable:- we can take Java byte code and can run it on any platform
• Java has higher performance than most interpreted languages but less than that of compiled languages like C and C++
• Java is a strongly typed language:- we have to decide the data type of a variable before declaring or using it. The data type of the variable will be checked at compile time
• Java is a standalone language

Working of java

We need an IDE ( integrated development environment) for Java programming. Some of the most commonly used IDEs for Java development are Eclipse, Netbeans, and IntelliJ idea.

We choose an IDE of our choice and then start writing code in Java.

Once we have written our code, then we compile it using a Java compiler. This will generate our bytecode.

We can then execute our byte code using JVM ( java virtual machine) on any operating system we want. We don’t have to write different byte codes for different operating systems.

Simple Java program

Here is a simple Java program that will give us output as “Welcome to Codedamn”

<-- importing Java I/O package -->
import java.io.*;
<-- main class -->
class codedamn {

       <-- main method -->
       public static void main(String[] args)
       {
           <-- print statement -->
            System.out.println(
             "Welcome to Codedamn");
       }
}
Code language: Java (java)

Output:-

Welcome to Codedamn
Code language: Java (java)

Different job titles a Java developer holds?

Many different types of job titles for Java developers have been listed below –

• Java Developer
• Junior Java Developer
• Entry-Level Java Developer
• Java Engineer
• Java Software Engineer
• Back End Java Developer
• Front-End Java Developer
• Full Stack Java Developer

Java developers in India have an average salary of ₹4,57,500 per year, according to glassdoor.

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript is a lightweight interpreted scripting language, usually taken into consideration as the language of the web, because it powers around 98% of websites that use JavaScript as their front-end and, around and usage of JavaScript as a back-end programming language is also increasing every year.

Nowadays, JavaScript is not only the language of the web but it is heading towards the tag of a general-purpose programming language with the emergence of NodeJs in server-side development, React Native in android development, Electron Js in desktop application development, and some game engines such as Kiwi and Babylon, etc.

JavaScript also powers many big companies in their tech stack, such as Microsoft in developing their Edge web browser, Paypal on the front-end of their website, Netflix in their back-end, Google in Gmail, and of course how can we forget AngularJs? It is backed by Google and a prominent part of the MEAN tech stack.

The file extension of JavaScript is .js.

Evolution of JavaScript

JavaScript was developed by the American computer programmer known as Brendan Eich while working at Netscape Communications Corporation.

Brendan Eich joined Netscape in April 1995 and made the first version of JavaScript in only ten days to comply with the release of Navigator 2.0 beta release.

The name JavaScript was renamed to grab the attention of Java developers because back then, Java was at its prime.

JavaScript was renamed at three points in time. It was initially known as Mocha, was renamed to LiveScript after three months in September 1995, and finally JavaScript in December 1999 following a joint announcement with Sun Microsystems.

The first version of JavaScript was known as ES1 (EcmaScript 1) and was launched in 1997. After that, multiple versions of JavaScript came in the upcoming years, and today the latest version of JavaScript is EcmaScript 2020, which added the Nulllish Coalescing Operator (??) to JavaScript.

Features of JavaScript

• Interpreted language:- JavaScript is an interpreted language. The web browser interprets the JavaScript code line by line and then executes it
• Lightweight:- JavaScript follows a paradigm known as JIT (just in time) compilation. It gets converted to bytecode just before it’s about to run, which makes JavaScript a lightweight language
• Case Sensitive:- All variable names, function names, and other identifiers must follow a compatible capitalization of letters in their naming Ex- let Myvariable = 5; let myVariable = 5; Both the variables are different
• Objects are first-class citizens:- this means that they can do what everyone else can do. Objects can be passed as reference, assigned to a variable, and returned to a function
• Loosely typed language: – users don’t have to worry about the data type of a variable before declaring it; it can be changed at runtime. This is a pro as well as a con for JavaScript, because of this, we aren’t able to catch errors early
• Both on front-end and back-end:- JavaScript can be used at both front-end and back-end development of a website using MERN or MEAN stack
• Platform Independent:- it can run on any operating system of your choice ( Linux, Windows, Mac, etc.)
• JavaScript can handle date and time

Working of JavaScript

We can write JavaScript code with a simple text editor like Notepad. But, it’s always advisable to develop using an IDE; this will make our development faster. Some of the most popular IDEs for JavaScript are VS Code, Sublime Text, and Atom.

Javascript requires a browser to run. It supports almost all the browsers like Google chrome, Mozilla firefox, safari, and so on. In every browser, there is a Javascript engine that does everything from parsing the code to running it.

Let’s take chrome as an example. V8 is the JavaScript engine for Google Chrome. First, we write our code in an IDE, and then we run it on a browser. Now, the syntax parser takes this code and converts it into an AST (abstract syntax tree), then the AST goes to the interpreter, and then the interpreter converts the high-level code to byte code. The byte code is then moved to the execution step. We then see the output of our code.

Here is an image showing all the stages included in running JavaScript code inside a V8 engine.

Simple JavaScript program

Here is a simple JavaScript program

<script>
console.log("Welcome to Codedamn");
</script>
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Output:-

Welcome to Codedamn 
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Different job titles a JavaScript developer holds?

• Front-end developer (client-side development)
• Back-end developer (server-side development)
• Full-stack developer ( both front-end and back-end)

According to indeed.com, the average base salary of a javascript developer in India is ₹6,05,443.

Java vs JavaScript Differences

Now that we have talked in detail about Java vs JavaScript, it’s time to choose which one is best for you.

To choose from Java vs JavaScript, first, you should be clear about your use cases. Let’s see which language is best suited for your use case.

Use cases of Java	Use cases of JavaScript
Java is considered the official programming language for Android app development. Java accounts for around 46% of all android apps made, and it is used by Android Studio, the official IDE for Android app development.	As JavaScript is unarguably the language of the web, JavaScript is being used in both front-end and back-end development. Two of the popular tech stack (MERN and MEAN) used javascript as their programming language. Front-end frameworks – React, Angular, Vue, etc. Back-end Frameworks – Node, Deno, etc.
Java is known to be one of the best languages to program IoT devices. It is also used to program medical gadgets such as MRI & also used to program embedded electronic devices such as digital cameras. Kaa is a popular open-source framework heavily based on Java for IoT development.	Mobile apps can also be made using Javascript. React-native is the JavaScript framework used for mobile app development. It is used to make cross-platform apps (android and ios). React native powers about 15% of all mobile apps, and its popularity is increasing day by day.
We use Java as a back-end (server-side) programming language in web development. Spring Boot is a popular java framework extensively used in back-end web development. Popular companies such as Google, Airbnb, Pinterest, Spotify, etc use java in their back-end.	A Desktop application can also be developed using JavaScript. Electron Js is a popular framework for developing cross-platform Desktop applications ( Windows, Mac, Linux, etc). Some of the popular desktop apps made using Electron Js are – Slack, Whatsapp, Web Torrent, WordPress, etc.
Java is also used in game development. Minecraft, one of the most successful games of the 21st century, was initially written in Java. Some popular frameworks of Java for game development are Libgdx and Opengl.	We can create browser-based games using JavaScript, using JavaScript frameworks such as GDevelop, Melon Js, Impact Js, etc. Game development using JavaScript is still new and growing at a decent pace.

Conclusion

Both Java vs JavaScript are excellent languages. But, both have their use cases and you should choose the one which suits your use case.

Though this is a vast topic and can’t be covered in a single article, I did my best to distinguish between Java and JavaScript and their use cases.

I hope this article will be helpful to you.