Node.js and Python both are established solutions for every server-side app development. With either platform, your team can manage and develop web applications of some complexity and functionality. When you consider backend development, then Python and Node.js both are the first things that come to your mind.
If Python is a programming language, Node.js is an environment allowing JavaScript code to run on the server side, not in your browser. It is based on Chrome's V8 engine, which runs on Google Chrome. Node.js was a sort of a quantum leap, as it is the 1st environment allowing using JavaScript both on the client side and on the server side.
In this article, we will compare two popular solutions for web app development: Node.js and Python.
What is Node.js
Node.js is a cross-platform open-source, JavaScript runtime environment so as to scalable network applications, and develop fast. Developers mainly use node.js for making server-side applications. It is the best known means for JavaScript coders to build real-time Web APIs. Node is maintained by the developer team at large, backed by Joyent, a cloud services company.
Here are some amazing advantages of node.js:
- NodeJs is asynchronous and single-threaded. As a result of this, its I/O operations don't block another operation. It helps read files; send emails, a query to the database, etc. in the meantime.
- Web server request in Nodejs does not make a separate NodeJS process. Still, one NodejS process runs at all times and as well listens to connections. In the process, the main thread is executed using Javascript, and I/O operations, on the other hand, are executed in separate threads that ensure no delays.
- NodeJS Virtual Machine that executes JavaScript has JIT collection. In the scenarios when a virtual machine takes the source code, it can compile it to machine code at runtime. Since, those 'hot' functions that get called very often, easily compiled to machine code, improving execution speed significantly.
Also Read: Node.js Interview Questions
The above some advantages of NodeJS offer due to providing an asynchronous concept. The framework supports developers to write code for server-side coding in JavaScript. It makes it the biggest competitor among PHP, Python/Django, and RoR. As we already appreciate that the Node.Js program never hangs around doing nothing, it makes the framework extremely popular.
Node.js Features that can be utilized to develop a mobile application:
- Fast and simple: It is developed on Google Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine which is why its libraries are capable of extremely fast execution of coding, which is very useful for developing a mobile application.
- Open-source framework: It is considered an open-source powerful Framework licensed by MIT and is supported by a huge community, which has contributed to adding new capabilities to Mobile applications.
- Scalability is high: It is highly scalable due to the event mechanism, and it aids the server in a non-blocking response.
- Asynchronous: It is also asynchronous which means that its based service generally never waits for an API to send back the response, normally it moves on to the next API.
- Buffering is no more a problem: It is a great framework to be used in a mobile application as there is no buffering of any data.
- Single-Threaded: As it is an extremely advanced Framework, It can follow the single-threaded model which means a single program can handle multiple requests.
- Cross-Platform: One of the most important reasons why it is utilized to develop a mobile application is that it can be constructed on different platforms like Linux, Mac, and Windows.
What is Python
Python is a general-purpose programming language and it is mainly in competition with PHP which is popular programming. It uses the object-oriented approach which is beneficial for programmers for better coding. Its code is not strictly typed also it uses multiple programming paradigms. It is easy to learn the language and that's why is in high demand.
Here are the amazing advantages of Python:
- Python is easy as well as consistent which makes its readability improved. This leads to better workflow when working on writing code for machine learning.
- It has a large number of libraries which would be a great help when writing complex and high-end algorithms for ML. This can go easily even if you are writing tricky also. The use of libraries reduces the time to code as the codes are already written and you just have to import them.
- Platform Independence makes it more desirable for ML. The code can run on more than one platform. This is supported by mostly every platform be it Linux, Windows, or Mac OS. Also, shareable codes can be created in python.
- When going for something a big large community is also needed to support it. Platforms such as Stack run over have a family of python users that would be of immense help to you at the time of any query when coding for ML.
- A huge range of frameworks makes it simpler for programmers to execute the code. This also reduces the time to code.
Also Read: Python Interview Questions
Features in Python:
- A variety of basic data types are available: numbers (unlimited-length long integers, floating-point, and complex), strings (ASCII and Unicode), dictionaries, and lists.
- Python supports object-oriented programming with classes and many several inheritances.
- The code can be grouped into packages and modules.
- The language supports raising and resulting in cleaner error handling, and catching exceptions.
- Data types are powerfully and dynamically typed. Mixing irreconcilable types (e.g. attempting to add a string and a number) causes an exception to be raised, so errors are wedged sooner.
- Python contains higher programming features such as generators and catalog comprehensions.
- Python's automatic memory organization frees you from having to manually allocate and free memory in code.
Hopefully, this overview website will help you build the right choice of your web development environment for the next project and future project.