JavaScript vs Python: Which One Should You Learn First?

Key Points

• Python syntax is more intuitive and closer to English, making it easier for beginners to get started, while JavaScript syntax contains more symbols, which may not be easy for programming newbies to understand.
• JavaScript is the mainstream language for web development, with a large number of libraries and frameworks, which are very valuable for those who want to work in the field.
• Python is very common in various fields such as AI, machine learning, and data science, and its application range is far beyond Web development.
• Both languages ​​support multiple programming paradigms, but because of their concise syntax, Python is generally more suitable for object-oriented programming, while JavaScript is better at event-based scripting.
• JavaScript provides more opportunities, especially in web development, given the demands of the job market, and Python is crucial for those engaged in scientific and academic applications.

Choosing which language to start programming is probably one of the most difficult things to get started with. Too many choices! You can read this guide on which programming language to learn first. However, if you are hesitating between JavaScript and Python, this article will compare their pros and cons in learning. According to a 2023 Stack Overflow survey, JavaScript is the most popular language, with 63.61% of programmers using it, Python follows closely behind, and 49.28% of programmers using it. JavaScript is still the most popular for professional developers. You can read more about this survey here. This article will introduce Python and JavaScript and compare side by side, provide examples of syntax for each language, and suggest which language you should learn.

Overview of Python and JavaScript

JavaScript is a high-level programming language that is often interpreted and executed. It was founded in 1995 by Brendan Eich and has since become the most popular programming language in the computer science industry. It is most commonly used in client programs for web pages. Usually, you will see JavaScript as part of the three elements of Web technology (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). These three technologies form the basis of most web pages on the Internet, and JavaScript makes web pages interactive.

Python is also a high-level programming language that can be compiled and interpreted. It was created in 1991 by Guido van Rossum. It is actually not named after the snake breed, but after the ancient BBC comedy sketch "Monty Paisson's Flying Circus." According to Python FAQ, Guido van Rossum read the published script of Monti Pyson while developing the language and thought the name "Python" was "short, unique and slightly mysterious", so he decided to Use it. Since its launch in 1991, Python has become one of the most commonly used programming languages, usually the first language for students to be taught by schools/educational institutions. Unlike JavaScript, which is usually used with HTML and CSS, Python exists as a standalone language. Python has made great progress over the years in many technical fields of computer science, such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science.

Side by side comparison

Because both languages ​​are very popular, it is difficult to choose which one to learn first. So we will compare the more subtle elements of each language and do some analysis of which language—JavaScript or Python—better. The topics we will compare are:

• Study difficulty
• Application
• External tools (libraries and frameworks)
• Example
• Grammar

Study difficulty

Of course, when choosing between two languages, the most important thing is to consider the difficulty of learning the language. We can determine the difficulty of learning a language by the complexity of the grammar, the number of resources available, and the size of the online community.

The syntax of Python is very similar to that of English. Python provides many logical operations as words in English (e.g. not, and, or), making it a very intuitive language and is therefore easy to get started. For example, if you search for elements with the found flags, you can write a conditional statement, for example, if not found. Additionally, Python manages the layout of the code through indentation and colons (before any indentation). This makes Python code very easy to read.

Although JavaScript's syntax is also similar to English, it requires more use of symbols instead of words. For example, in JavaScript, we have &&, || and!, not and, or, not. JavaScript also relies on braces and semicolons to separate lines of code. So many symbols may make JavaScript harder to read and therefore harder to learn, especially if you don't have previous programming experience.

Because Python and JavaScript are very popular, there are a large number of articles, tutorials and books to help learn both languages, such as those available on SitePoint. Due to the large number, it is difficult to determine if Python or JavaScript has more resources. In addition to online resources and books, the coding community is also known for its massive online presence on numerous platforms such as Stack Overflow and Twitter. As the most popular language, JavaScript should naturally have the greatest online influence.

Anyway, Python is easiest to learn from a syntax perspective, but JavaScript provides a wider help.

Apply

Both Python and JavaScript are considered "promoting languages", which means that understanding one of them (and of course both!) will make higher-level programming much easier. Most software developers/coding jobs require you to master Python or JavaScript or both. In addition, one of the most popular subfields of software development—Web development—revolves around JavaScript. According to a 2023 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 65.82% of professional developers use JavaScript, making it the most common language among professionals. Additionally, JavaScript is often considered the language that employers need the most. LinkedIn searches show that there are more than 60,000 JavaScript job openings in the UK, and according to Indeed, the average salary of JavaScript developers in the United States is $108,981. We can see how much demand is for JavaScript as a language.

However, JavaScript is usually only used for web development. Even if JavaScript can be used for other applications, most JavaScript resources are focused on building web applications (various complexity levels), so finding helps with anything else (especially if it's complex) can be very difficult. Python, on the other hand, is not really affected by this drawback, as it is not associated with one aspect of computer science. Python can be applied to many fields of computer science, such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, mathematical modeling, and more.

Therefore, from a technical career perspective, learning JavaScript will open many doors for you. However, if you want to use programming to facilitate your learning of computer science as a whole, Python will be more suitable.

External tools (libraries and frameworks)

After learning the basics of Python and JavaScript, the next important step in the programming journey will be to leverage a large number of external tools to help your program take the next level.

Python has various very powerful libraries. These libraries are actually what makes Python so powerful and popular. Some of the most popular libraries include NumPy, scikit-learn, and Flask. NumPy itself brings great power to Python, with built-in functions that can quickly handle highly complex mathematical scenarios. Furthermore, NumPy facilitates large-scale mathematical processing and modeling, which makes Python very suitable for research and education. Scikit-learn supports machine learning in Python, which is a very powerful tool. Finally, Flask allows us to create backends for web pages in Python.

The development of JavaScript tool Node.js has completely changed JavaScript because it also allows JavaScript to be used without a browser and allows server-side code to be written using JavaScript. This means that external tools that do not directly involve web development can be written, resulting in more packages published on npm than any other language. In September 2022, more than 2.1 million packages were listed in the npm registry. At that time, this made npm the largest single language (JavaScript) code repository. A year and a half later, JavaScript is still leading the way in the number of available external packages.

There are many JavaScript frameworks, the two most popular are React and Vue. The overall purpose of these frameworks is to make web development easier and better. For example, React and Vue handle state management to process data, which makes it much easier to develop large and multi-layer programs (which require a lot of data).

While Python has many external tools, JavaScript has more tools. So in JavaScript you can almost guarantee to find the library or framework you need, while in Python you may have difficulties in a more niche area.

Example

Example is a programming style. There are many different programming paradigms, some more niche than others. For example, imperative (procedural), functional, logical, object-oriented, data-oriented, script-oriented, assembly, concurrency, list-based, fourth-generation, visualization, etc. Being able to code with different paradigms is a very popular skill because it can bring many benefits to your code, such as improving the maintainability of your code and the reusability of certain code elements. So it will most likely be part of your programming journey.

Python and JavaScript are both multi-paragraph languages, which means you are not limited to always writing programs in the same style. They all support imperative, object-oriented, functional, and script-style paradigms. If you have never seen a different programming paradigm before, here is a brief summary:

• Imperative: Code is written as a series of instructions that are executed in the order they appear in the code. This is an example of what most programmers start to learn, as it is considered the most "intuitive" and is closest to telling the computer almost directly what you want to happen (in the form of a series of instructions). You can read more here.
• Object-oriented: The code is written as a collection of "objects". "Object" uses properties and attributes to describe the items we are trying to copy in the code. For example, in an animal game, we might have Dog classes. Attributes can be considered as attributes that describe the class, such as name = Rover of the Dog class. A method is a way to update or access properties. You can read more here.
• Functional: The code is written as a series of mathematical functions that are linked together to execute the program. For example, if we want to add two numbers, we must define a function add that returns x y, where x and y are the inputs of the function. You can read more here.
• Script-style: The code is designed to automate tasks or customize existing programs. This paradigm is not as popular as the others listed above, but is crucial for JavaScript. You can read more here.

Imperative programming in Python or JavaScript is very similar, but they differ more in other paradigms. Python has a very concise object-oriented programming (OOP) syntax, using classes to define objects with properties and methods (as functions/procedures). This syntax is very close to the formal definition of objects in programming. This is because in Python, almost everything is an object (even if we don't notice it). On the other hand, JavaScript's object-oriented programming syntax is much inferior and much more intuitive than Python. However, JavaScript is known for its use of document object models, which makes event-based programming very natural and much easier than Python. Event-based programming is crucial when making web applications because we want to make our website interactive. Therefore, JavaScript is a better language for scripting examples (as the name suggests!). While functional programming can be implemented in both languages, JavaScript introduces const keyword and arrow functions in ES6 updates, which makes functional programming in JavaScript much easier.

It is important to remember that when learning object-oriented and functional programming, it is best to use a language dedicated to these paradigms. For example, Java or C# is used for OOP, Haskell or Elm is used for functional programming. So for early learning and experimenting with OOP or functional programming, Python and JavaScript will work perfectly. If you are keen on learning scripting examples, JavaScript will be more suitable.

Summary

主题	Python	JavaScript
语法	优点：与英语的相似性使其非常容易学习 缺点：符号的使用使其相当难以学习	平局
在线资源	平局	平局
在线社区	缺点：Python并不像JavaScript那样流行	优点：JavaScript是最流行的
就业机会	缺点：并非所有工作都需要Python	优点：由于Web开发是一个巨大的领域，几乎主要要求JavaScript
更广泛的计算机科学用途	优点：Python可用于机器学习、人工智能、数据科学、数学建模等	缺点：JavaScript主要用于网站开发
外部工具的数量	缺点	优点
外部工具的有效性	平局	平局
命令式编程	平局	平局
面向对象	优点：类定义的语法与正式和理论定义非常相似	缺点：类定义的语法与正式定义相差甚远
函数式编程	缺点：在Python中是可能的，但使用Python的语法更难维护函数式编程的规则	优点：使用const和箭头函数有很大帮助
脚本式	缺点：是可能的，但如果没有文档对象模型，它就会变得非常棘手	优点：文档对象模型的使用使事件处理更容易

Grammar

Although we have discussed the grammar of the two languages, we will look deeper into the more subtle differences between the two languages. We will look at the most standard programming instructions and the differences between Python and JavaScript.

Print

An important concept in any programming language is printing. In any good beginner programming tutorial, the first program you write should print the phrase Hello, World!. The following is how to implement it in Python:

print("Hello, World!")

In JavaScript:

console.log("Hello, World!")

As you can see, these are very similar. However, we can already see how close Python is to English, while JavaScript has a more technical feel.

Variable

Another important concept in programming is the ability to use variables. Variables are essentially a way to store data that we need to reuse in our program. Python and JavaScript are very different in this regard. For example, in Python, we just need to give the name and initial value of the variable:

best_number = 29
print(best_number)

In JavaScript, any variable must be declared with one of three keywords - var, let or const (although const can only be used if the value of the variable is not reassigned, and remains throughout the program Unchanged):

var bestNumber = 29
let secondBestNumber = 20
const worstNumber = 27

console.log(bestNumber, secondBestNumber, worstNumber)

However, according to modern JavaScript standards, the use of var is outdated, so it is best to avoid it and use let for any variables that need to be changed.

if statement

if statement is a method of creating program branches based on conditions. In English, we can understand it as: "If this is true, run this code. Otherwise, run this code". For JavaScript and Python, this is very similar. But here we start to see the impact of JavaScript brackets and braces discussed earlier. In Python, we will write:

if best_number == 29:
    print("That's correct! That is the best number")
else:
    print("That's wrong...the best number is 29")

Note that we have to use == to test whether the two values ​​are equal to each other. Also, note the colon at the end of each if statement section. We can add more branches to the if statement using the keyword elif (for else if). For example:

if best_number == 29:
    print("That's correct! That is the best number")
elif best_number == 20:
    print("Close...that's the second best number!")
else:
    print("That's wrong...the best number is 29")

In JavaScript, we write:

if(bestNumber === 29){
    console.log("That's correct! That is the best number")
}
else if(bestNumber === 20){
    console.log("Close...that's the second best number!")
}
else{
    console.log("That's wrong...the best number is 29")
}

As you can see, we use {} braces instead of colons in Python, and we have to include the code of the if statement in parentheses. Also, we have to write === instead of == in JavaScript. Finally, it is important to understand that in JavaScript we don't need indentation to run the code, we can write code like this:

if(bestNumber === 29){console.log("That's correct! That is the best number")}
else if(bestNumber === 20){
console.log("Close...that's the second best number!")
}
else{
    console.log("That's wrong...the best number is 29")
}

But this looks very confusing, and JavaScript itself is hard to read! So most people try to include indentation as part of their code.

for loop

for loop is an iterative technique in programming. We use it when we want to repeat a piece of code for a certain number of times. For our example, we want the for loop to be executed 29 times (apparently). So, in Python, we write:

print("Hello, World!")

Here, x is a temporary variable whose value changes in each iteration of the for loop: in the first iteration, x = 0, in the second iteration, x = 1, in the In the third iteration, x = 2, and so on. So our program will output 0, then 1, then 2, and so on until 28. As you can see, the range function is defined by two limitations: 0 and 29. However, the upper limit 29 is not included. JavaScript has exactly the same principle, but the syntax is completely different:

console.log("Hello, World!")

To break it down, we have three parts separated by semicolons:

1. let x = 0 declares a temporary variable x with an initial value of 0. This will have the exact same purpose as x in our Python program.
2. x < 29 means that the loop will continue until the value of x is greater than or equal to 29.
3. x is the abbreviation for writing the following: Each iteration, we want to increase the value of x by 1.

As you can see, JavaScript has more manual settings and requires more symbols. Although this setup is harder to read, it is actually very similar to other famous languages ​​like Java and C. Additionally, JavaScript (as mentioned above) relies on separating code with different brackets and curly brackets, while Python relies on indents and colons only.

while loop

while loop is another iterative technique in programming that acts as a mixture of if statements and for loops. While loop will execute a piece of code until a certain condition is met. For example, we want to continue outputting Wrong! until best_number equals 29. In Python, we will write:

best_number = 29
print(best_number)

!= means "not equal", where! means not. So when best_number is not equal to 29, we run the print statement, which means the while loop will run until best number is 29. In JavaScript:

var bestNumber = 29
let secondBestNumber = 20
const worstNumber = 27

console.log(bestNumber, secondBestNumber, worstNumber)

These are very similar, with only subtle differences, such as !== instead of !=, and all the differences we discussed above.

Grammar summary

Chemism is entirely about how the language is written and what it looks like to the reader. It's easy to see that Python looks so clean that even someone who has never programmed before can read a simple Python program and understand what it achieves. JavaScript, on the other hand, prefers symbols over words, like most programming languages. This makes the appearance and layout more mathematical. Perhaps surprisingly, JavaScript's syntax is actually very similar to other popular languages, such as Java. So, in general, if we only consider syntax, Python is definitely easier to learn than JavaScript. However, JavaScript has a more easily transferable syntax, which means it will be much easier to learn other languages ​​like Java or C once you have learned JavaScript.

Conclusion

Now that we have an overview of Python and JavaScript, it is important to remember that learning neither will cause any harm to you! Any encoding is better than no encoding! However, from a more technical point of view, if you want to learn coding to find a job in software development, or if you have experience in other languages, then we recommend starting with JavaScript. If you are learning coding just for learning, we recommend using Python as it provides easier transitions into the coding world.

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