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Is programming in Python faster than in C, C++ or Java? [closed]

softwareengineering.stackexchange.com › questions › 69005 › is-programming-in-python-faster-than-in-c-c-or-java

Ousterhout's article¹ about scripting languages suggests that the higher level the programming takes place, the more productive the programmer is. If we take that, as Boehm says², the number of lines a programmer can write in a given time is constant and not dependent on the language or its type (low level, system programming, scripting), one can easily believe the claim. The resulting instructions-per-source-code-line -ratio can be an order of magnitude (or several) better with scripting languages than with system programming languages.

As scripting languages heavily rely on ready-made utilities for common tasks (e.g. data structures, string manipulation), their main use usually is to enhance productivity with the cost of slower running speed by providing a syntax that's easy to learn and efficient to upkeep programs with. One doesn't resort to a scripting language when top execution speed is needed.

[1]: J. K. Ousterhout, Scripting: Higher Level Programming for the 21 Century, Computer (IEEE), 1998
[2]: B. Boehm, Software Engineering Economics, Prentice Hall, 1981

Answer from Jawa on Stack Exchange

reddit.com › r/learnprogramming › java vs python vs c++

r/learnprogramming on Reddit: Java vs python vs C++

May 23, 2023 -

Hey y'all, I'll be needing to choose either one of Java, python, c++ or web programming for my second semester in electronics and communications but i have no idea where to start from

I've learnt all the basics of c programming in my first semester and i have to choose between the above mentioned for the second semester and it's really rattling my brain

Which of them would be better for a beginner to programming language and which would be most helpful in the future, if you'd have to say?

Thanks in advance!

All of those languages are useful in different situations. Python's very popular with scientists, ML engineers, and the like. Non-programmers who need to write programs love it because it's approachable and has a plugin for basically anything. It's my favorite language for writing tiny, one-off programs and doing hackathons and coding competitions and stuff. Java's the workhorse of the corporate world. If you're writing a giant application full of business logic for a big corporation, and you're gonna maintain it for two decades, Java's still the default choice. C++ is the most powerful option. If you need something to go as fast as it can go, C++ is your default choice. But whole types of bugs around stuff like memory that are basically impossible to cause in Python or Java are really easy to cause in C++, and its error messages aren't so much legible as they arSegmentation Fault (core dumped). You can go far with any of them, and there's a good chance you'll end up learning all three at some point.

Love Python, but I’m in the “it’s better as your 2nd/3rd language” camp. The others are ‘harder’ and force you to gain a deeper understanding. Then you can pickup Python super easy. “Oh hey, it basically works the same but just does all the fiddly bits for me”. But you would know what those fiddly bits are, and can check the docs and be certain that behind the curtain it really is doing what you think it is. People who do it the other way around seem to have it harder, they don’t know how much Python is doing for them, why, or that it even is.

geeksforgeeks.org › java › c-vs-java-vs-python

C vs C++ vs Java vs Python vs JavaScript - GeeksforGeeks

Java – Compiled to bytecode, runs on JVM (interpreted/JIT-compiled). Platform-independent, strongly typed, with automatic garbage collection. Popular for enterprise android and backend systems. Python – Dynamically typed, typically first compiled and then interpreted via bytecode execution.

Published August 12, 2025

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code.quora.com › Which-language-is-best-C-C-Java-or-Python

Which language is best, C++, C#, Java, or Python? - Code - Quora

Python for when you need to do something quickly, and C# for when you need better performance. They are both very easy. C# is slightly more difficult, but it is worth it. As a beginner, I guess it would be better to stay away from C , C++ and Java.

reddit.com › r/learnprogramming › very broadly, what are the differences between c, python, and java?

r/learnprogramming on Reddit: Very broadly, what are the differences between C, Python, and Java?

October 24, 2017 -

From the perspective of the uninitiated, with a low level of proficiency, they look functionally indentical: all very useful, and each one capable of a wide range of tasks. A few syntax differences aside, elementary stuff looks practically interchangable.

At a deeper than surface level, what sorts of specialties does each offer? I’m a beginning programmer looking to get a basic lay of the land, as it were.

C is compiled down to a platform-dependent binary executable (e.g., a .exe file on Windows). You can't take one of these binaries and run it on a different operating system, as it has been compiled to run for a specific operating system. C does not have a runtime/garbage collector, which means that you have to manually manage the memory allocation of your program (see malloc and free). One has to be careful when managing the memory of their program, as there's an entire class of memory bugs that managed languages (languages with a garbage collector, for instance) don't have. In fact, since C is a lower level language, it does not give you many of the features that other languages have out of the box, such as generics, interfaces, classes, or lambdas. However, because C is such a bare-metal language, it is supported across the most computer architecture, can be optimized to run incredibly quickly, and can use extremely little resources. Java, like C, is a compiled language. However, it does not get compiled down to binary files, but rather to an intermediate representation known as JVM byte code (.class files). This can then be interpreted (see the Java JIT) by a platform dependent program known as the Java Runtime Environment. Java programs are garbage collected, which means that the interpreter itself will ensure that your objects and variables are allocated and deallocated as necessary, which protects Java programs from a whole range of memory bugs that C suffers from. This comes at a performance cost, as this means that your program suffers from the overhead of having to run both itself and this garbage collector in the background. Java has language features such as interface, classes, generics, lambdas, and foreach loops that can be leveraged to write safer and cleaner code. Python is a dynamically typed and interpreted language. Whereas it's possible to detect type errors at compile time in C and Java (i.e., trying to pass a boolean into a function that expects an integer), Python will not detect these type errors until it tries to execute that section of the code. The python interpreter will directly interpret your .py file (that's half true, the interpreter will create .pyc files to prevent having to parse a file multiple times). This means that there is no compilation step necessary to execute Python source code. Python, like Java, is a garbage collected language. It has a plethora of language features such as list comprehensions, generators, coroutines/async, and literals for datatypes such as lists, sets, and dictionaries. While this will vary from program to program, Python will typically be slower than Java, and much slower than C. To summarize, C is statically typed, low-level, and essentially has no run-time. Java is statically typed, garbage-collected, and compiled to an intermediate representation that then gets executed by a platform-dependent run-time environment. Python is dynamically typed and interpreted with a large amount of language features, albeit with generally worse performance.

A major difference between the three is this; C is compiled straight to binaries and is run on the machine that compiled it or same/very-similar type machines. Java is is compiled into byte code which is run on any machine that can run a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Python is interpreted by the machine that is running it at run time. What this means to you is that C is the most difficult to make programs that will run on different types of systems but is hella fast and super powerful on the ones it runs on. Java is easier to run on different machines, say mac and pc, but is slightly slower and more difficult to make powerful. Python runs on just about anything, as long as there's an interpreter written for it, but it's slow as shit and significantly more limited in what it can do, at least when compared to C and Java.

python.org › doc › essays › comparisons

Comparing Python to Other Languages | Python.org

Python is often compared to other interpreted languages such as Java, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, or Smalltalk. Comparisons to C++, Common Lisp and Scheme can also be enlightening. In this section I will briefly compare Python to each of these languages. These comparisons concentrate on language ...

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Python VS Java, C++ & More: Ultimate Showdown in 2025-2026

March 13, 2026 - It’s statically typed, object-oriented, and powered by the JVM, which allows it to run across platforms efficiently. Huge corporations trust Java because it scales well, supports complex systems, and has decades of proven success in production. Python, on the other hand, is dynamic and expressive.

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Python, c sharp, c++ or Java ?? | Sololearn: Learn to code for FREE!

Ok Python is for A lot of different things like A.I some 2d game development works on robots. c# is just for Windows device development it runs on the .Net framework it's basically Java just for Windows c++ is King when it come to programming but it is very hard to learn and requires you to write longer lines and to get something done that python could do in five.

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softwareengineering.stackexchange.com › questions › 69005 › is-programming-in-python-faster-than-in-c-c-or-java

Is programming in Python faster than in C, C++ or Java? - Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Ousterhout's article¹ about scripting languages suggests that the higher level the programming takes place, the more productive the programmer is. If we take that, as Boehm says², the number of lines a programmer can write in a given time is constant and not dependent on the language or its type (low level, system programming, scripting), one can easily believe the claim. The resulting instructions-per-source-code-line -ratio can be an order of magnitude (or several) better with scripting languages than with system programming languages.

As scripting languages heavily rely on ready-made utilities for common tasks (e.g. data structures, string manipulation), their main use usually is to enhance productivity with the cost of slower running speed by providing a syntax that's easy to learn and efficient to upkeep programs with. One doesn't resort to a scripting language when top execution speed is needed.

[1]: J. K. Ousterhout, Scripting: Higher Level Programming for the 21 Century, Computer (IEEE), 1998
[2]: B. Boehm, Software Engineering Economics, Prentice Hall, 1981

If you measure productivity as "time to write a specific simple program" then it depends so much more on programmer experience and quick mind than the language that you are really evaluating the programmer, not the language.

I believe timed code contests indicate that the language doesn't really matter for those kinds of tasks. There is no one language that wins such challenges easier than others (at least not if you allow for the relative popularity of languages).

If you measure performance as "the effectiveness of the best program" written in a given language, then it's even less language-dependent. See for example the results of the Galcon AI contest. The winner is written in Lisp. The next Lisp entry, however, is ranked #280. What does this tell us about the language's suitability for writing great AI efficiently? In my opinion, nothing. It just tells us that "bocsimacko" came up with and implemented the most effective algorithms. For the record, time was not a major factor in this contest - people had more than two months to develop their code.

Lastly, if you measure performance as "long-term cost of maintaining a project" then I think you're onto something. Especially if you hire only the best people for the job, and count cost in man-hours rather than dollars. I have a strong opinion on which languages are best for this, but having no hard evidence to link you to I'll leave this opinion out. Perhaps someone else has links for this type of performance.

abhinnpandey.medium.com › python-vs-c-vs-java-choosing-the-right-language-for-your-project-31947682a1fd

Python vs. C++ vs. Java: Choosing the Right Language for Your Project | by Abhinn Pandey | Medium

June 19, 2023 - Python excels in rapid development and ease of use, C++ shines in performance-critical applications and systems programming, while Java offers robustness and platform independence.

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Which is better c/c++ or python or java | Sololearn: Learn to code for FREE!

c++ is fast and can use many opportunities of the OS (operating system), but it's hard to learn and platform dependent. Java is rather slow, but easy to learn and platform independent.

quora.com › Among-Python-C-and-Java-which-one-is-better

Among Python, C and Java which one is better? - Quora

Answer: Python is great for ease of use and data science. C excels in low-level system programming. Java is ideal for cross-platform applications. So, Python is better one.

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Java vs C vs Python for App Development: A Guide for CTO

December 6, 2024 - While it is frequently derided as being less performant when it comes to CPU-heavy workloads than Java or C#, it is a fantastic language for prototyping and scalable python app development in and cloud-native applications with rapid turnaround times.

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What is the difference between Java, Python and C++ | Codingal

February 3, 2025 - As a result, it keeps bringing a lot of value to the field of software development. Python offers new libraries, quick prototyping, and other new capabilities while requiring less programming.

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Python vs. Java vs. C++:Key Differences With Real-Time Examples

February 16, 2024 - Software Development: To simplify the software development process of complex applications, python is widely used by software developers. With Java, you can write once and run your code anywhere because of a platform-independent programming language.

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C++ vs Java vs Python who wins? 💪💪 | Sololearn: Learn to code for FREE!

Python will reduce the lines even for complex algorithms. Winner: Python Easy to learn 😍 😍 😍 There is no doubt, Python is lot easier to learn as a beginner programming language. Core concepts of Java is easier to learn.

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Java vs Python Vs C++ - Naukri Code 360

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quora.com › What-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-learning-Python-compared-to-C-C-and-Java-Which-language-would-be-more-beneficial-for-a-beginner-to-learn-and-why-What-is-the-potential-for-Python-in-the-future

What are the pros and cons of learning Python compared to C/C++ and Java? Which language would be more beneficial for a beginner to learn and why? What is the potential for Python in the future? - Quora

Answer (1 of 2): As a software developer, I’d say Python is a great language for beginners to start with. It has a simple and readable syntax which makes it easier to grasp the concepts. Python also has a wide array of libraries and frameworks which can simplify complex tasks.

quora.com › What-is-more-beneficial-for-an-engineer-Python-C-or-Java

What is more beneficial for an engineer: Python, C++ or Java? - Quora

Answer (1 of 2): I will try to make easier for your understanding, all the languages are good and they could nearly do all the things, but IT industry has seen decades of evolution and big software companies has made some standarad around it, also they are responsible for many evolution about the...

quora.com › Is-Python-a-better-programming-language-to-start-with-compared-to-C-C-or-Java-Which-language-is-more-challenging-for-beginners

Is Python a better programming language to start with compared to C, C++, or Java? Which language is more challenging for beginners? - Quora

Answer: In order of difficulty: Python, Java, C++, C. One caveat is that the I/O in C++ is easier than that of C, so there are subsets of C++ that are easier to use than C, and if you already know C++ relatively well, Java and C will be easy to learn. If you want the easiest language to use, Py...

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A Performance Comparison Between C, Java, and Python | by Gunavaran Brihadiswaran | The Startup | Medium

July 24, 2020 - A Performance Comparison Between C, Java, and Python This is what happened when I ran matrix multiplication in all three languages I have been doing a lot of implementations in C language for my …