How To Choose The Right Programming Language?

Introduction

In this digital age, one of the highest paying tech jobs is programming. People are fascinated by code. However, choosing a programming language to learn is confusing because most people lack the necessary information to make a good decision. It is always best to go through what exactly you want to accomplish by using code. Think for yourself whether you want to learn coding to build mobile apps or whether you want more command over your data. You can do all these things using code and your opportunities will continue to expand. Once you have decided what you want to study and build, you can think about which language to learn. In all honesty, every language comes with its own set of pros and cons. You can narrow your options down considerably if you pick a specific goal or project. In this article, we will talk about the different programming languages that are trending and used to develop various software projects.

HTML/CSS/JavaScript

Learning HTML(Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS(Cascading Style Sheets) at the beginning is often beneficial to create static web pages.The texts, links and other content on a websiteare structured by HTML. CSS, on the other hand, adds color, layout and other visuals (commonly known as style) to the web page. Therefore, if you are interested in creating websites, you should start by learningHTMLand CSS.

Learning JavaScript is the next rational step to take after learning HTML and CSS. The behavior portion of the website is determined by JavaScript. For instance, while filling out a form, the error in that form can be shown using JavaScript. This programming language is becoming immensely popular and can be accessed outside web browsers as well.

Cross-platform runtime library and environment like Node.js are available to run JavaScript applications outside the browser. It is a free and open source tool which is used for developing server-side JS applications. The applications in Node.js are written in JavaScript and they run within the Node.js runtime on Linux and Microsoft Windows.

Structural frameworks like AngularJS are used for developing dynamic web apps.HTML is used as template language and its syntax is used to express the components briefly and clearly. As a full-fledged JavaScript framework, the primary goal of AngularJS is simplification. It also supports the development of dynamic, single page web apps and also supports the MVC programming structure.

PHP

Hypertext Preprocessor(PHP) is a largely used web language. Huge sites like Facebook and Wikipedia are based upon PHP. Learning PHP will be hugely beneficial to you if you want to code for the web. PHP content management systems like WordPress and Drupal are extremely popular these days as they power a large number of sites online today.

PHP Frameworks like Laravel and Codeignitor help in providing a basic structure which will help you in streamlining the development of web applications, thereby speeding up the entire development process.

ASP.NET

Generally speaking, .NET is a Microsoft developer platform which is made up of tools, programming languages and libraries to build many different types of applications. On the other hand, ASP.NETis openly sourced which extends the .NET developer platform and has tools and libraries that are distinctly used for building web apps.Some of the things that are included in the .NET platform are the C# programming language and its compilers; base libraries which are used for working with strings, dates, files/IO and more and editors and tools for Windows, Linux, macOS and Docker.

Java

Created in 1995, Java is a popular programming language which is owned by Oracle. It is estimated that more than 3 billion devices run in Java. It is usually used for mobile applications, desktop applications, web applications, web servers, games, database connection and much more. The popularity of Java is largely because it works on different platforms and is open source and free.

The Java programming language has four platforms:

1.      Java Standard Edition (J2SE) which offers the core functionality of the Java programming language.

2.      Java Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is built on top of the Java SE platform. It provides an API and runtime environment which is used for the development and running of large-scale, multi-tiered, scalable and secure network applications.

3.      Java Micro Edition (J2ME), which provides an API for running Java programming language applications on small devices like mobile phones.

4.      JavaFX is another platform which is used for developing internet applications by using a lightweight user-interface API.

Additionally, there are frameworks as follows in Java:

1.      Spring framework is a lightweight application development framework which is used for J2EE. Some of the key features of this framework can be used in developing any Java application and is known as a complete modular network. It is used for all layer implementations of a real-time application.

2.      Hibernate is described as a stable object-relational mapping framework for Java. It provides a better communication between Java programming language and relational database management systems (RDBMS).

3.      Strutsis an enterprise-level framework which is maintained by the Apache Software Foundation.It is a fully featured Java web application which will allow the software developer to create a maintainable Java application.

Python

Python is usually considered a general-purpose programming language that is used for everything from the server automation to data science. It is the best language for beginners, as it is simpler to read and understand and is also open sourced.Python can be used or creating web apps like Instagram and is also used by researchers to make sense of their data.

Perl

Perl is a general-purpose programming language that is stable and works across platforms. It was originally developed to manipulate text and is now used for a variety of tasks including system administration, web development, network programming, GUI development and so much more together.HDFC Life Insurance Company Ltd.website is built using Perl.

Ruby on Rails

Often associated with the Rails framework, Ruby is widely used among web startups and big companies likewise as it is open sourced and a fully object-oriented programming language. They have been used by Twitter and GitHub extensively.Ruby on Rails is used to build database-backed web applications.

Mobile Technologies

Android

Android applications are developed by using Java, as large parts of it are written in Java and so are its APIs. Recently, Kotlin was introduced as a secondary “official”Java language to develop Android apps.Android Studio also supports the C++ programming language using the Java NDK. It usually helps in the development of games, even though C++ is a bit more complicated to use. This is where C# comes into play, as it is a slightly friendlier alternative to C or C++ and supports some tools like Unity and Xamarin which facilitate greatly in game development and for cross-platform development.

iOS

iOS is basically Apple’s mobile OS that runs on an iPhone, iPad and iPod hardware. Therefore, the tools and resources for creating iOS apps and accessories for these devices are provided by Apple. To be an iOS developer, you can start coding in languages like Swift or Objective-C .

Hybrid

A hybrid app is referred to a software application which combines the elements of both the native apps and web applications.They are particularly web apps –written in HTML, CSS and JavaScript – that have been put in a native app shell. These apps are popular because they facilitate the developers into writing code for a mobile app once, yetenabling it to run on multiple platforms.As hybrid apps add additional layer between the source code and the target platform, they tend to perform slower than the native or web versions of the same app.

React Native

React is used to create native apps for Android and iOS.React Native incorporates the best parts of native development with React, by using the best JavaScript library to build user interfaces.On the whole, it supports platform-specific versions of components so that a single codebase can share the code across platforms. Using React Native, a single team can work on two platforms just by sharing the same technology, i.e. React.

Which Is The Best?

PHP vsASP.NET vs Java

Programming languages like PHP are open source and are a sensible choice for building smaller web applications with low budgets.As far as ASP.Net is concerned, it is an appropriate choice for an enterprise-level application that has strict security requirements and also high data incorporation needs. ASP.NET comes with built-in security features where Microsoft SQL Server has a backend database that is absolutely solid. Java applications are preferred because it works on multiple platforms and can be deployed with ease.

You can choose the appropriate language of your choice according to the requirements and needs of your project. Most of the times, PHP and Java are preferred for development, as they support more platforms than ASP.NET does.

AngularJSvsReactJSvsNodeJS

Choosing the right JavaScript framework can be a daunting task sometimes. As far as web application development is concerned, the JavaScript based platforms – AngularJS, NodeJS and ReactJS have been gaining the attention of developers and are an exceptional choice.

AngularJSis considered to be an open sourceclient-side web framework that is used by software developers to resolve issues that are faced by a single page web application which contains a shell page and has multiple views. However, AngularJS offers limited routing, and as interactive elements get embedded in the pages, the Angular becomes slow with pages.

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime that uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model which is lightweight and efficient. This package is the largest ecosystem of open source libraries in the world. The greatest advantage of Node.js is that it is highly extensible and supports real-time web application development.The drawback is that it does not have a rich library and it keeps changing at frequent intervals, where an asynchronous programming approach is followed.

ReactJS is a framework that helps in building a dynamic library with high performance. It is considered to be an open source JavaScript library rather than a framework, which is used for building great user interfaces and is good for rendering performance. However, the drawback of using it is that due to the constant release of new tools, the documentation remains incomplete and it is difficult for new ReactJS developers to understand and code.

Native vs Hybrid

In Native apps, the languages used in building are native only. It comes with a user interface that is rich and attractive. It is platform based, so works on the respective platform on which it is built on. Additionally, it has a high access to native APIs. These apps also perform faster and are highly reliable due to their design. The native apps also support updating, where the whole app needs to be updated to see the changes.It has a rich ecosystem of tools and has a built-in navigation system.A con is that the developers should have expertise in developing apps on a particular OS and if they do not have the appropriate experience then it will take time to study and understand the development for each platform. Also, it generally takes a lot of time to launch one native app in the market, which is usually six months or so and the development cost is expensive as well.

The Hybrid apps are written in native and web languages. Due to the usage of web technology, the user will not get a fully native experience. The greatest advantage is that hybrid apps support multiple platforms and have moderate access to native APIs. This usually slows down the performance of the apps. As far as the updating is concerned, the apps will get regularly updated from the App store without needing the market to update the app code. The con of hybrid apps is that is has lesser compatibility with other apps present on the device. The frameworks like Rubymotion, React Native, PhoneGap and Sencha Touch are supported by the hybrid apps. From the developer’s point of view, they can learn this easily and they do not have to learn the development of apps for each platform.

Conclusion

As far as programming languages are concerned, focus on something that would help you in tackling problems that you are genuinely interested in solving. There is a plethora of programming languages to choose from, but choosing something that would help you will go a long way. Last but not least, do not stress if you dislike the language you picked because you can always move to a next language, once you have got the hang of coding.