C vs Python All you Need to Know!

C and Python are on of the most used programming languages. Let's look into details about the major Features in different aspects of each language.

                

C and Python

Before starting the comparison, let's see the details of these two languages. C was developed by Dennis Ritchie in the 1970s. It was the first higher-level language and was also considered to be the mother of all other programming languages. Before C the programming was done in Pascal, and assembly language. C soon became famous and became the most used language by more than 20 million programmers all over the world. Even most of the operating systems like Windows are built on C. Some of the Applications are

• Google File System, Google Browsers
• MySQL open-source Projects
• Browsers like Mozilla Firefox
• Networking Protocols
• Assemblers and Compilers

Another most demanding language nowadays with more than 10 million users is Python which is developed by Guido van Rossum in the 1990s. The reason python being popular is because of its versatile nature. You can code anything in python from scripts to websites open-source projects to compilers from AI to cybersecurity Python is everywhere. Python is the best choice for people, who are new to programming and want to make programming their career. Even Non-technical students can learn Python without any difficulty. This is the reason for it being the most used language even more than "Java". Some of the Applications of Python are

• Web Development with Django and Flask
• Artificial Intelligence, ML and Neural Networks
• Companies like Netflix, DropBox, Instagram built with python
• Research-Based Applications
• Game Developing

C Vs Python What are the Differences?

So as we are looking into the two best languages we will consider a lot of aspects that are used to measure a programming language. All our comparisons are done under optimal conditions.

Which is Fast Enough?

There are 2 types of languages are Interpreted and Compiled Languages. Interpreted are the language types which are run line by line and give output in this process the language interprets and converts to assembly language, Python is an interpreted language. Compiler Languages are those that are compiled first and checked for errors and bugs and then executed, C is a Compiled Language. Interpreted Languages are Slow as compared to compiled languages as they are executed line by line and interpreted with converting into an assembly language.

So clearly We can say The winner is C. Not only C python is considered to be very slow when compared to other languages the execution time of python is a lot higher than others. Which is the biggest disadvantage of Python. You need to write your code more efficiently and properly in python. 

Memory Management Which is Efficient?

Memory Management is considered to be another important aspect to compare languages. It tells about how efficiently a Programming languages use its memory. How much memory is needed to be allocated for the execution? As the memory is limited it needed to be properly allocated if there is a huge line of code. If the language is not good enough if it runs on a low specs device it might not get enough memory and might get crashed and causing issues which is a serious issue. Programmers need to use the language according to the need. Different languages use different strategies to resolve this issue. The most popular one is the Garbage collection.

Garbage collection is a process to detect unused memory allocations and freeing them. Whenever a process needs memory to execute garbage collector checks for unused memory and allocates it to the process. In most of the language, garbage collection is done automatically. Unused variables, Objects, References are the causes of this issue. Python has its Garbage collection system Which makes it programmers easy to code and focus only on the main code. In C this should be done by the developer and it doesn't provide any automatic garbage collection or memory management system.

So clearly Python is the winner. The main aspect of python is being been it's so easy to learn. Most of the Problems are solved by python itself and the programmer can only focus on his work instead of solving other issues. Memory Management In C can be solved by using dynamic memory allocation which is a little bit hard concept to understand which makes it tough and less memory efficient.

Complexity, Community Which is most User-Friendly?

Being User-friendly for a language can be an important aspect sometimes. And if you are from a Non-technical background then you need to consider this aspect. It tells how easy is to learn the language if you are new to the language. And also the community. Community refers to the people who solve the problems of other programmers and also contribute to their projects. If the community is good even if you don't have a tutor you can learn from it. Syntax and flow of code can tell how easy the language is to learn. Some of the codes have a lot more syntax than others for writing the same program. Or if you have some issue with the program and can't find the exact solution even if you search about the topic this means there are fewer programmers with that issue and the community is less.

Python is tremendously growing in the last few years there is also an increase in its community. C while being older than python also has a good community. But when it comes to user Friendliness python is easier for beginners. Syntax of C might seem confusing for beginners wherein in python it looks as if we are writing the code in English. The readability of python is also higher and anyone can understand the code just by looking into it. So clearly Python is the winner for being more User-friendly and having good community support.

Functionalities and Libraries Which Has more Database?

Functionalities tell about the domain where we can use the language and how versatile the language is. For an open-source language Contributors across the globe can contribute to it which allows it to have more libraries and functionalities. Python is a fully open-source language which makes it versatile. As we have we can code anything in python its more adaptive which makes it beloved by many of the programmers. C is also used in different domains but not as much as python and also the no of libraries in C are also less compared to python.

This can sometimes make you lazy and make you dependent on the functions rather than the actual logic of how it works. This is the reason why I consider C to be better because it makes you feel like a programmer. Python doesn't have the motivation which you have in C. Python makes you dependent on the libraries even simple functions like sort, count, etc. can be implemented using functions. But as we are discussing the amount of content definitely python is the winner. The main reason for this victory is being open-source technology.

Error handling Which is easy to Debug

What if you have written an enormous code and are stuck due to some minor Bug and cant rectify it. This is the tough job of being a programmer. If you don't understand where your code or logic is going wrong then it can make your life miserable. For a new programmer if the code is easy to understand then debugging becomes a lot easier because as a beginner you tend to make mistakes and that's where the learning starts.

We all know how complex the C program looks. Even more complex is to debug the code There is a lot of things going on in C and being a complier language we cannot identify the exact line where we are having a mistake. In python, as we know the language is more like an English sentence and as it is interpreted language we can identify mistakes more accurately. You can just write a print statement where you feel that the error might come. The reason is in python due to its less complexity we can trace the path or flow of the logic and how the code works. In C this is not as easy as python and also there are more syntax issues in C like commas, semi-colons, etc. only syntax python has is the indentations. So seeing all these aspects we can say that python is the winner.

Summary 

After Considering all the aspects time to decide the language to use. Declaring a language doesn't mean that the other language is not good it only means it just lacks some features compared to the other language. Both Python and C are revolutionary topics the have changed the mindset of writing a program. C and python are the best languages ever made and will be in use for the next 10 years for sure.

But when it comes to Competition we can say Python is good for Beginners and C is good for Understand Programming. But if you are new to the program you should start it by learning C it gives you the path to how to write a code and how to think like a programmer whereas python makes you lazy by using all inbuilt functions. Python can be used when you have proper knowledge about logic and code. That's the reason people adapting python in research.