Difference Between C and Java

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the difference between C and Java, two majorly adopted programming languages for software development, C and Java. We will discuss the features of each of these languages that make them so popular and famous in the developer community and also how they differ from each other and on what basis. We will also look at the major pros and cons of these languages.

What is C?

The C programming language is a general-purpose and high-level language. It supports the structured programming paradigm in which the program execution follows the writing order of the code. C is procedure-oriented language as it supports a top-down approach in which we first divide the program into smaller modules called functions which are used to perform a specific task. This functional implementation enhances the modularity of the program, and then we can solve them individually. It is an extremely popular, simple, flexible programming language that can run on any machine.

History of C

The C programming language was developed by American computer scientist Dennis M. Ritchie at AT&T and Bell Laboratories. It was devised in the early 1970s as a system implementation language for the Unix operating system, and by 1980, it became the most popular language for mainframes, microcomputers, and minicomputers. It was derived from the B language invented by Ken Thompson. In 1983, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) developed a commercial standard for the programming language. Since then, C is referred to as ANSI C.

What is Java?

Java was developed much after the development of C and is based on the C language itself. Let’s talk about what Java programming language actually is, what led to its development and its popularity, etc.

Java is a widely-used general-purpose programming language and software platform. It is object-oriented because problems are modeled in objects which contain data and code. It is class-based language as a class defines all the properties that define the blueprint for a set of objects. It was initially designed with the main goal of “write once, run anywhere”. Its rules and syntax are based on and like that of C and C++ languages. Java is very reliable, fast, and secure with more than 3 billion devices using Java for various applications.

History of Java

Java was originally invented by James Gosling of Sun Microsystems in 1991. Initially, it was named “Oak” after an oak tree that James Gosling had outside his office. Later, the language was named “Green” and then finally, Sun Microsystem released this language under the name of “Java” in 1995. The Sun microsystem released the first public implementation of Java as Java 1.0 in January 1996. In 2009, Oracle Corporation acquired Sun Microsystem, and they took ownership of three major Sun software assets: Java, MySQL, and Solaris. Java 16 is currently the latest version of Java released in March 2021.

Key Differences Between C and Java

Memory Management:

• C: Manual with malloc and free.
• Java: Automatic garbage collection.

Platform Dependence:

• C: Platform-specific; needs recompiling.
• Java: Platform-independent with JVM.

Object-Oriented Features:

• C: Procedural; can mimic OOP.
• Java: Inherently object-oriented.

Standard Libraries:

• C: Basic standard library.
• Java: Comprehensive Java API.

Choose based on project needs and developer preference.

Difference Between C and Java

Features of C

The most popular and loved features of C are:

1. Procedural C is a procedural language in which instructions are carried out step by step in a predefined way. We may create more than one function, but the execution starts from the main() function and is carried out procedurally.

2. Fast and efficient C language is much faster than Java as it provides direct manipulation with the computer hardware, and there is less additional processing like in other high-level languages.

3. General-purpose language C is a general-purpose programming language in the sense that we can create system programs or some application software such as media players from C. C is even used in the development of operating systems such as Linux, Windows, iOS, Android, etc. and databases like MySQL, MS SQL Server, PostgreSQL, etc.

4. Modular C is a modular language as we can break the entire code into small sub-modules known as functions. These individual functions can do a specific task and help in the reusability and readability of code.

5. Statically Typed C is a statically typed language, which means, in the C language the type of variable is checked at compile-time only and not at runtime. This also implies that a developer always has to specify the type of variable they use in their programs.

6. Portability The programs written in C language can be run on any system with different operating systems with either no or minimalistic changes.

7. Extensible C language is extensible as any program once written in C, can adopt its new features easily and new operations can be added to it without much effort.

Features of Java

The features that make Java the popular language it is today are:

1. Object-Oriented Java is called pure object-oriented language as it strongly supports all the major object-oriented features like abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, inheritance, etc. In Java, almost everything is an Object. It is impossible in Java to execute a program without making a Class.

2. Platform-Independent Java is a software platform that runs on top of hardware-based platforms, and it has two main components:

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
• Application Programming Interface (API)

Java code is compiled into bytecode. This generated bytecode is purely platform-independent and can be run on machines like Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc. Any machine having JRE can run Java programs. That is why it is known as platform-independent or a “write once, run anywhere” language.

3. Portable Java is a portable language as we can take the bytecode anywhere and run the program on any machine without compiling the code again.

4. Robust Java is a robust language because of the following factors:

• No use of pointers and hence enhanced security.

• Type checking and exception handling are supported.

• Java garbage collector does automatic garbage collection to remove objects that the application is not using anymore.

• Strong and enhanced memory management. 5. Secure The two main features of Java along with other features that make it a secure language are:

• Java has no pointers, which makes security problems like dangling and wild pointers non-existent in Java.

• Java programs run inside a JVM, So a Java program never really interacts directly with the OS. In the figure below, we have shown the interaction of Java with OS:

6. Architecture Neutral Since the Java program is compiled into bytecode and runs on JVM. The bytecode has no dependency on the implementation of the computer architecture. Hence, Java is architecture-neutral and can run on any system of any configuration.

7. High Performance Since Java is a compiled and interpreted language. With the use of a just-in-time compiler, it enables high performance.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Java

Advantages

1. Java is straightforward to learn, write, use, compile, and debug than other popular programming languages.
2. It is a distributed language as it allows the developers to write distributed applications. We can write programs in Java that are designed to run on computer networks.
3. Java is a multi-threaded language, which means, we can write programs that run on multiple threads and can perform multiple tasks simultaneously.
4. Java is a dynamic language as it supports the dynamic loading of Java classes. This means that whenever there is a request to invoke a method of a class, JVM checks if the class is already loaded in memory or not and accordingly loads the class in memory dynamically.

Disadvantages

1. In Java, source code is first compiled into the bytecode and then that bytecode is interpreted into machine-level code. This makes Java slower than the other popular languages like C and C++.
2. Java runs on top of the JVM that is a part of JRE. JRE requires its own memory for running and executing the Java code, making Java a memory expensive language.
3. The GUI created using popular frameworks of JAVA like Swing, AWT, JavaFX, etc is less attractive and intuitive.
4. Java requires high processing and memory. Thus, we need better hardware to run Java programs. Hence, it is more costly than other native languages like C and C++.
5. Although the garbage collector automatically manages the memory, we cannot control it. Java provides no method such as free() and deletes() like in C and C++ to free the memory.