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Hack

570
168
+ 1
29
JavaScript

366.7K
279.1K
+ 1
8.1K
Python

247.9K
202.6K
+ 1
6.9K

Hack vs JavaScript vs Python: What are the differences?

Introduction: When it comes to programming languages, each one has its own unique features and capabilities. Hack, JavaScript, and Python are all popular languages used for different purposes, and understanding their key differences can help developers choose the right tool for their projects.

  1. Type System: Hack is a statically typed language, meaning that variable types are explicitly declared at compile time, which can help catch errors early in the development process. JavaScript and Python, on the other hand, are dynamically typed languages, where types are determined at runtime, offering more flexibility but potentially leading to more errors.

  2. Syntax: Hack's syntax is more similar to PHP, as it was initially developed as a dialect of PHP. JavaScript has a C-style syntax, while Python has a clean and readable syntax that emphasizes code readability and explicitness.

  3. Tooling and Libraries: Hack was developed by Facebook and is mainly used for backend development, with a focus on scalability and performance. JavaScript is widely used for frontend web development, with frameworks like React and Angular, as well as for server-side development with Node.js. Python has a strong emphasis on simplicity and readability, with a vast ecosystem of libraries for various applications, including data science and machine learning.

  4. Concurrency and Parallelism: Hack has built-in support for asynchronous programming through async and await keywords, making it suitable for handling concurrent operations efficiently. JavaScript also supports asynchronous programming through promises and async/await, but it lacks low-level support for concurrency. Python's Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) limits the ability to achieve true parallelism in multi-threaded applications, making it less suited for high-performance tasks that require parallel processing.

  5. Community and Adoption: JavaScript has a large and active community, with a wide range of resources and support available. Python is also popular among developers, particularly in the fields of data science and machine learning, with a strong community and extensive documentation. Hack, while not as widely adopted as JavaScript and Python, has gained popularity in the web development community due to its enhanced type safety and performance optimizations.

In Summary, understanding the key differences between Hack, JavaScript, and Python in terms of type system, syntax, tooling, concurrency, community, and adoption can help developers choose the right language for their specific project requirements.

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Pros of Hack
Pros of JavaScript
Pros of Python
  • 6
    Interoperates seamlessly with php
  • 6
    Open source
  • 5
    Backed by facebook
  • 4
    HHVM
  • 2
    PHP like
  • 2
    Great documentation
  • 2
    Generics
  • 1
    Fast
  • 1
    Used by facebook
  • 0
    Great type system
  • 0
    Easy to learn
  • 1.7K
    Can be used on frontend/backend
  • 1.5K
    It's everywhere
  • 1.2K
    Lots of great frameworks
  • 899
    Fast
  • 746
    Light weight
  • 425
    Flexible
  • 392
    You can't get a device today that doesn't run js
  • 286
    Non-blocking i/o
  • 237
    Ubiquitousness
  • 191
    Expressive
  • 55
    Extended functionality to web pages
  • 49
    Relatively easy language
  • 46
    Executed on the client side
  • 30
    Relatively fast to the end user
  • 25
    Pure Javascript
  • 21
    Functional programming
  • 15
    Async
  • 13
    Full-stack
  • 12
    Future Language of The Web
  • 12
    Setup is easy
  • 12
    Its everywhere
  • 11
    Because I love functions
  • 11
    JavaScript is the New PHP
  • 10
    Like it or not, JS is part of the web standard
  • 9
    Expansive community
  • 9
    Everyone use it
  • 9
    Can be used in backend, frontend and DB
  • 9
    Easy
  • 8
    Easy to hire developers
  • 8
    No need to use PHP
  • 8
    For the good parts
  • 8
    Can be used both as frontend and backend as well
  • 8
    Powerful
  • 8
    Most Popular Language in the World
  • 7
    Its fun and fast
  • 7
    It's fun
  • 7
    Nice
  • 7
    Versitile
  • 7
    Hard not to use
  • 7
    Popularized Class-Less Architecture & Lambdas
  • 7
    Agile, packages simple to use
  • 7
    Supports lambdas and closures
  • 7
    Love-hate relationship
  • 7
    Photoshop has 3 JS runtimes built in
  • 7
    Evolution of C
  • 6
    Easy to make something
  • 6
    It let's me use Babel & Typescript
  • 6
    Client side JS uses the visitors CPU to save Server Res
  • 6
    Can be used on frontend/backend/Mobile/create PRO Ui
  • 6
    1.6K Can be used on frontend/backend
  • 5
    Client processing
  • 5
    What to add
  • 5
    Stockholm Syndrome
  • 5
    Function expressions are useful for callbacks
  • 5
    Scope manipulation
  • 5
    Everywhere
  • 5
    Promise relationship
  • 5
    Clojurescript
  • 4
    Because it is so simple and lightweight
  • 4
    Only Programming language on browser
  • 1
    Not the best
  • 1
    Hard to learn
  • 1
    Test
  • 1
    Easy to learn
  • 1
    Subskill #4
  • 1
    Easy to learn and test
  • 1
    Love it
  • 1
    Test2
  • 1
    Easy to understand
  • 0
    Hard 彤
  • 1.2K
    Great libraries
  • 965
    Readable code
  • 848
    Beautiful code
  • 789
    Rapid development
  • 692
    Large community
  • 439
    Open source
  • 394
    Elegant
  • 283
    Great community
  • 274
    Object oriented
  • 222
    Dynamic typing
  • 78
    Great standard library
  • 61
    Very fast
  • 56
    Functional programming
  • 52
    Easy to learn
  • 47
    Scientific computing
  • 36
    Great documentation
  • 30
    Productivity
  • 29
    Easy to read
  • 29
    Matlab alternative
  • 25
    Simple is better than complex
  • 21
    It's the way I think
  • 20
    Imperative
  • 19
    Very programmer and non-programmer friendly
  • 19
    Free
  • 17
    Powerfull language
  • 17
    Machine learning support
  • 16
    Fast and simple
  • 14
    Scripting
  • 12
    Explicit is better than implicit
  • 11
    Ease of development
  • 10
    Clear and easy and powerfull
  • 9
    Unlimited power
  • 8
    Import antigravity
  • 8
    It's lean and fun to code
  • 7
    Python has great libraries for data processing
  • 7
    Print "life is short, use python"
  • 6
    There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious
  • 6
    Readability counts
  • 6
    Rapid Prototyping
  • 6
    Fast coding and good for competitions
  • 6
    High Documented language
  • 6
    I love snakes
  • 6
    Now is better than never
  • 6
    Although practicality beats purity
  • 6
    Flat is better than nested
  • 6
    Great for tooling
  • 5
    Great for analytics
  • 5
    Lists, tuples, dictionaries
  • 5
    Web scraping
  • 4
    Socially engaged community
  • 4
    Simple and easy to learn
  • 4
    Easy to learn and use
  • 4
    Beautiful is better than ugly
  • 4
    Complex is better than complicated
  • 4
    Multiple Inheritence
  • 4
    Easy to setup and run smooth
  • 4
    CG industry needs
  • 4
    Plotting
  • 3
    List comprehensions
  • 3
    Powerful language for AI
  • 3
    Flexible and easy
  • 3
    It is Very easy , simple and will you be love programmi
  • 3
    Many types of collections
  • 3
    If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a g
  • 3
    If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad id
  • 3
    Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules
  • 3
    Pip install everything
  • 3
    No cruft
  • 3
    Generators
  • 3
    Import this
  • 2
    Procedural programming
  • 2
    Batteries included
  • 2
    Can understand easily who are new to programming
  • 2
    Should START with this but not STICK with This
  • 2
    A-to-Z
  • 2
    Because of Netflix
  • 2
    Only one way to do it
  • 2
    Better outcome
  • 2
    Good for hacking
  • 2
    Securit
  • 1
    Slow
  • 1
    Best friend for NLP
  • 1
    Sexy af
  • 1
    Automation friendly
  • 0
    Keep it simple
  • 0
    Powerful
  • 0
    Ni

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Cons of Hack
Cons of JavaScript
Cons of Python
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 22
      A constant moving target, too much churn
    • 20
      Horribly inconsistent
    • 15
      Javascript is the New PHP
    • 9
      No ability to monitor memory utilitization
    • 8
      Shows Zero output in case of ANY error
    • 7
      Thinks strange results are better than errors
    • 6
      Can be ugly
    • 3
      No GitHub
    • 2
      Slow
    • 0
      HORRIBLE DOCUMENTS, faulty code, repo has bugs
    • 53
      Still divided between python 2 and python 3
    • 28
      Performance impact
    • 26
      Poor syntax for anonymous functions
    • 22
      GIL
    • 19
      Package management is a mess
    • 14
      Too imperative-oriented
    • 12
      Hard to understand
    • 12
      Dynamic typing
    • 12
      Very slow
    • 8
      Indentations matter a lot
    • 8
      Not everything is expression
    • 7
      Incredibly slow
    • 7
      Explicit self parameter in methods
    • 6
      Requires C functions for dynamic modules
    • 6
      Poor DSL capabilities
    • 6
      No anonymous functions
    • 5
      Fake object-oriented programming
    • 5
      Threading
    • 5
      The "lisp style" whitespaces
    • 5
      Official documentation is unclear.
    • 5
      Hard to obfuscate
    • 5
      Circular import
    • 4
      Lack of Syntax Sugar leads to "the pyramid of doom"
    • 4
      The benevolent-dictator-for-life quit
    • 4
      Not suitable for autocomplete
    • 2
      Meta classes
    • 1
      Training wheels (forced indentation)

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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Hack?

    Hack provides instantaneous type checking via a local server that watches the filesystem. It typically runs in less than 200 milliseconds, making it easy to integrate into your development workflow without introducing a noticeable delay.

    What is JavaScript?

    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.

    What is 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.

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    Blog Posts

    Sep 29 2020 at 7:36PM

    WorkOS

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    Pinterest

    JavaScriptC++Varnish+6
    5
    3564
    PythonDockerKubernetes+14
    12
    2693
    JavaScriptGitHubReact+12
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    What are some alternatives to Hack, JavaScript, and Python?
    PHP
    Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.
    Node.js
    Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.
    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.
    Java
    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!
    TypeScript
    TypeScript is a language for application-scale JavaScript development. It's a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.
    See all alternatives