Selecting a Programming Language for Your Web App? Consider the following factors!

By / December 26, 2016 /

Selecting a programming language is not an easy task especially when you belong to the domain of non-technical users who have to rely on their advisors and partners. The choice of a programming language also defines the success of your business, so it is crucial that you consider the pros and cons of different options available.

Criteria

First, you need to consider the below mentioned criteria:

  • Available frameworks and platforms
  • Community support
  • Strategic issues like which tech stack your potential company prefers to have or which one is it utilizing
  • Eligibility of the language itself
  • How tough the language is to learn. In case the rules and syntax of the language is complex, you’ll get more capable developers as just the best ones get through. On the other hand, there may not be many developers available for languages like Erlang, Scala, Prolog, Lisp, Golang, etc.

PHP

The popularity of PHP among the thriving developer community cannot be overstated. It is utilized not only for WordPress development but also for complex system. The credibility of PHP owes to the fact that even Facebook utilizes it. Since PHP does not utilize much of the resources of the system in order to run, it functions pretty well as compared to other scripting languages. Hosting the language is also simple as a majority of hosts provide support for PHP.

Pros & Cons of PHP

Pros:

  • It permits fast implementation of complex solutions. The faster an application makes an appearance in the market, the higher is your cost efficiency and the greater your competitive advantage.
  • PHP is extremely accessible. There are multiple frameworks written in it like Yii, CakePHP, Laravel, Kohana, Zend Framework, PhalconPHP, etc.
    It provides great flexibility during and after the initial project as the number of resources is continuously growing.
  • PHP can be embedded in HTML and offers a sound host support.
  • PHP has performance accelerators available for it.
  • PHP7 was introduced in December 2015 and since then its performance has risen considerably. An entirely different architecture sits in the kernel of PHP, so it changes the way how the interpreted code is being processed on the level of operation and this causes the boost in performance.

Cons:

  • Compared to its competitors, PHP is not a cross platform. The language is compatible with Windows OS and UNIX based OS.
  • When somebody claims that they know PHP, it is not easy to access their development skill level, so it is required to delve deeper. Basic PHP is pretty easy to master and people without any computer science background can begin developing, without knowing much about time complexity, algorithms, advanced database querying, systems scalability, application performance optimization, etc.

Python

Pros of Python:

  • Python takes lesser time to develop than other languages as the programs are shorter in it. Therefore, deeper prototyping and faster development provides you a competitive advantage.
  • It performs well across multiple platforms.
  • The language has easy to use data structures and a pretty simple syntax.

Cons:

Python does not offer a very great performance. Programs written in Python are slower than those written in Java, for example. This owes to the fact that it is one of the interpreted languages which are generally slower than compiled languages.

Ruby

Ruby is the technology that pays best in Western Europe, according to Stack Overflow 2015 Developer Survey. This says a lot about the adoption scale of Ruby.

Pros of Ruby:

  • Since Ruby favors convention over configuration, this makes the applications easier to understand and develop. Clear syntax makes the process of programming more efficient and much faster.
  • The DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle offers a great advantage. By not writing the same information over and over again, the code becomes more extensible and maintainable.
  • RoR framework has a quite simple structure and is easy for developers.
  • It has a large development community.
  • MVP can be developed faster on Ruby as compared to the development on other languages.
  • There are multiple libraries. So, when you are writing the code, you are equipped with a readymade solution, so you don’t have to write the code from scratch. The chief repository contains around 100,000 languages.

Cons:

Since the technology pays quite well, the development might turn out to be more expensive than in other programming languages.
The performance of Ruby is not as fast as JavaScript or PHP.

Java

Pros of Java:

  • A crucial aspect of Java is that you are required to write your application once and then you get to run it anywhere. JVM is a universal engine that works everywhere and can be utilized for anything.
  • Java has a large dedicated community of developers.
  • It is built considering the security factor in mind, so security features of Java are one of its greatest advantages.

Cons:

  • The process of development is expensive than in Python or PHP.
  • Bigger projects can get difficult to build and compile.
  • Now, since you’ve been equipped with the pros and cons of these languages, you can form a choice considering your requirements. Also, keep in mind that you just need to search a good development team for your project. Then, no matter which programming language you opt for, you can be quite assured of a positive result.
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