C# vs Java vs JavaScript

Overview

Java

Stacks148.0K

Followers105.5K

Votes3.7K

Stacks70.1K

Followers46.3K

Votes2.2K

JavaScript

Stacks392.3K

Followers284.0K

Votes8.1K

C# vs Java vs JavaScript: What are the differences?

1. Syntax and Language Structure: C#, Java, and JavaScript have different syntax and language structures. C# has a similar syntax to Java, making it easier for Java developers to switch to C#. While both C# and Java use curly braces for defining blocks of code and have similar control structures, C# has some additional features like properties and indexers. On the other hand, JavaScript has a more flexible and dynamic syntax with loose typing, allowing for faster development and prototyping.
2. Platform and Application Development: C# is primarily used for Windows application development and is tightly integrated with the Windows operating system. It is mainly used with Microsoft technologies like .NET Framework and ASP.NET. Java, on the other hand, is platform-independent and can be used for developing applications for multiple platforms like Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is commonly used for enterprise-level backend development. JavaScript is mainly used for web development and runs within the web browser. It is the language of the web and enables dynamic interactions on web pages.
3. Memory Management and Garbage Collection: C# and Java both use automatic garbage collection for memory management. They have similar garbage collection mechanisms and provide a high level of memory management abstraction. In contrast, JavaScript uses garbage collection based on the "Mark and Sweep" algorithm, which helps identify and clean up memory resources that are no longer needed. JavaScript's garbage collector operates differently compared to C# and Java, focusing on managing resources within the browser environment.
4. Object-Oriented Programming Model: C# and Java are both strongly object-oriented languages, supporting classes, inheritance, and polymorphism. However, C# has some additional features like delegates and events, which provide more flexibility in handling events and callbacks. Java, on the other hand, has interfaces and checked exceptions, which enforce a stricter code structure. JavaScript, being a scripting language, has a prototype-based object-oriented model, where objects are dynamically created and extended. It does not have classes or classical inheritance like C# and Java.
5. Type System and Static Typing: C# and Java both have a static type system, which means that variables need to be declared with their types before use. They provide compile-time type checking, which helps catch potential errors early. On the other hand, JavaScript has a dynamic type system, where variables can hold values of any type, and their types can change at runtime. JavaScript allows for more flexibility due to its loose typing nature, but it also increases the chances of runtime errors.
6. Development Tools and Ecosystem: C# has a strong ecosystem and is integrated with Microsoft's Visual Studio IDE, providing a rich set of development tools and libraries. It has good support for debugging, profiling, and unit testing. Java also has a mature ecosystem with various IDE options like Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA. It has a wide range of libraries and frameworks for different application domains. JavaScript, being a web-focused language, has extensive tooling and frameworks like Node.js, React, and Angular, making it popular for both frontend and backend development.

In Summary, C#, Java, and JavaScript differ in terms of syntax, platform/application development, memory management/garbage collection, object-oriented programming model, type system/static typing, and development tools/ecosystem.

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Advice on Java, C#, JavaScript

Nick

Building cool things on the internet 🛠️ at Stream

Sep 5, 2019

Review

I work at Stream and I'm immensely proud of what our team is working on here at the company. Most recently, we announced our Android SDK accompanied by an extensive tutorial for Java and Kotlin. The tutorial covers just about everything you need to know when it comes to using our Android SDK for Stream Chat. The Android SDK touches many features offered by Stream Chat – more specifically, typing status, read state, file uploads, threads, reactions, editing messages, and commands. Head over to https://getstream.io/tutorials/android-chat/ and give it a whirl!

176k views176k

Comments

Ido

Mar 6, 2020

Decided

When developing a new blockchain, we as a team chose Go lang over Java and other candidates, due to Go being (a) natively suited to concurrency - there are primitives in the language itself (goroutines, channels) that really help with reasoning about concurrency (b) super fast - build time, running, testing are all much faster that Java, this gives a far superior developer experience (c) shorter and stricter than Java - code is much shorter (less verbose), and there is usually one good way to do things, and even the code formatter that is bundled with Go is very opinionated - over a short time this makes reading other people's code far smoother than having to deal with different styles.

You should be aware that Go presently (v1.13) lacks Generics.

267k views267k

Comments

Mike

Enterprise Architect at Warby Parker

Dec 22, 2019

Decided

When I was evaluating languages to write this app in, I considered either Python or JavaScript at the time. I find Ruby very pleasant to read and write, and the Ruby community has built out a wide variety of test tools and approaches, helping e deliver better software faster. Along with Rails, and the Ruby-first Heroku support, this was an easy decision.

258k views258k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Java	C#	JavaScript
Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!	C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.	JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.
Statistics
Stacks 148.0K	Stacks 70.1K	Stacks 392.3K
Followers 105.5K	Followers 46.3K	Followers 284.0K
Votes 3.7K	Votes 2.2K	Votes 8.1K
Pros & Cons
Pros 608 Great libraries 446 Widely used 401 Excellent tooling 396 Huge amount of documentation available 334 Large pool of developers available Cons 33 Verbosity 27 NullpointerException 17 Nightmare to Write 16 Overcomplexity is praised in community culture 12 Boiler plate code	Pros 351 Cool syntax 294 Great lambda support 267 Great generics support 212 Language integrated query (linq) 181 Extension methods Cons 15 Poor x-platform GUI support 8 Closed source 7 Requires DllImportAttribute for getting stuff from unma 7 Fast and secure	Pros 1671 Can be used on frontend/backend 1497 It's everywhere 1163 Lots of great frameworks 899 Fast 746 Light weight Cons 24 A constant moving target, too much churn 20 Horribly inconsistent 16 Javascript is the New PHP 9 No ability to monitor memory utilitization 8 Shows Zero output in case of ANY error
Integrations
Spring	.NET	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Java, C#, JavaScript?

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

Rust

Rust is a systems programming language that combines strong compile-time correctness guarantees with fast performance. It improves upon the ideas of other systems languages like C++ by providing guaranteed memory safety (no crashes, no data races) and complete control over the lifecycle of memory.

Clojure

Clojure is designed to be a general-purpose language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming. Clojure is a compiled language - it compiles directly to JVM bytecode, yet remains completely dynamic. Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system.

Related Comparisons

C# vs Java vs JavaScript: What are the differences?

1. Syntax and Language Structure: C#, Java, and JavaScript have different syntax and language structures. C# has a similar syntax to Java, making it easier for Java developers to switch to C#. While both C# and Java use curly braces for defining blocks of code and have similar control structures, C# has some additional features like properties and indexers. On the other hand, JavaScript has a more flexible and dynamic syntax with loose typing, allowing for faster development and prototyping.
2. Platform and Application Development: C# is primarily used for Windows application development and is tightly integrated with the Windows operating system. It is mainly used with Microsoft technologies like .NET Framework and ASP.NET. Java, on the other hand, is platform-independent and can be used for developing applications for multiple platforms like Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is commonly used for enterprise-level backend development. JavaScript is mainly used for web development and runs within the web browser. It is the language of the web and enables dynamic interactions on web pages.
3. Memory Management and Garbage Collection: C# and Java both use automatic garbage collection for memory management. They have similar garbage collection mechanisms and provide a high level of memory management abstraction. In contrast, JavaScript uses garbage collection based on the "Mark and Sweep" algorithm, which helps identify and clean up memory resources that are no longer needed. JavaScript's garbage collector operates differently compared to C# and Java, focusing on managing resources within the browser environment.
4. Object-Oriented Programming Model: C# and Java are both strongly object-oriented languages, supporting classes, inheritance, and polymorphism. However, C# has some additional features like delegates and events, which provide more flexibility in handling events and callbacks. Java, on the other hand, has interfaces and checked exceptions, which enforce a stricter code structure. JavaScript, being a scripting language, has a prototype-based object-oriented model, where objects are dynamically created and extended. It does not have classes or classical inheritance like C# and Java.
5. Type System and Static Typing: C# and Java both have a static type system, which means that variables need to be declared with their types before use. They provide compile-time type checking, which helps catch potential errors early. On the other hand, JavaScript has a dynamic type system, where variables can hold values of any type, and their types can change at runtime. JavaScript allows for more flexibility due to its loose typing nature, but it also increases the chances of runtime errors.
6. Development Tools and Ecosystem: C# has a strong ecosystem and is integrated with Microsoft's Visual Studio IDE, providing a rich set of development tools and libraries. It has good support for debugging, profiling, and unit testing. Java also has a mature ecosystem with various IDE options like Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA. It has a wide range of libraries and frameworks for different application domains. JavaScript, being a web-focused language, has extensive tooling and frameworks like Node.js, React, and Angular, making it popular for both frontend and backend development.

C# vs Java vs JavaScript

Overview