Python over JavaScript? (Facts, please) [closed]

Question

I recently learned JavaScript an all of the sudden I hear about Python...

Should I go learn Python or just stick with my basic JavaScript knowledge?

If you have some "facts" I would love to hear them! Like efficiency, difficultylevel and so on, an so on...

Thanks :)

Answer 1

The two are generally used quite differently. Javascript is primarily used as a client side scripting language vs python which is a server based language. So in a website you could use both. But not sure if this is what you were wondering.

Answer 2

If you're just learning a language, then there is none better than Python. It's an easy language to pick up. It's well documented. It's associated with a large, active, and friendly community. Since it's a scripting language, you can easily try stuff out and immediately see the results. You can also build up from programming basics, starting by learning functions and then moving into classes.

Javascript is the bane of many a programmer's existences. It's easy enough to learn, and is good for small scripts which is what is was designed for. But once you start making anything big, it becomes hard to keep track of. That's why language modifications like CoffeeScript, Typescript and Dart have emerged.

As noted by spinon, these programming languages were used in very different ways. Python is a general scripting language, which can sometimes be used to do server-side work. Javascript used to be solely used for building interactivity on web pages. Nowadays, however, it also becomes popular in server-side and desktop applications as Node.js.