Difference between C and Java 

What is C?

C is a programming language that was developed at Bell Lab in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie. The C language was developed with an objective of writing system software. It is an ideal language for developing firmware systems.

C language combines the features of Low level as well as High-level Language. Hence it's considered a middle-level Language.

In this C and Java difference tutorial, you will learn

• What is C?

• What is Java?

• History of C language

• History of Java

• What is the Difference Between C and Java

• Features of C

• Features of Java

• Application of C

• Applications of Java

• Advantages of C

• Advantages of Java

• Disadvantage of C

• Disadvantage of Java

What is Java?

Java is a multi-platform, object-oriented, and network-centric programming language. It is among the most used programming language. Java is also used as a computing platform, and it was first released by Sun Microsystem in 1995. It was later acquired by Oracle Corporation.

 

KEY DIFFERENCES:

• C is a Procedural Programming Language whereas Java is an Object-Oriented language.
• C is middle level language while Java is high level language.
• C does not support threading on the other hand Java has a feature of threading.
• C supports pointers but Java does not support pointers.
• In C garbage collection needs to managed manually while in Java, it is automatically managed by a garbage collector
• C offers support for call by value and call by reference but Java only supports call by value.
• In C language memory allocation can be done by malloc while in Java memory allocation can be done by the new keyword.

History of C language

Here, are important landmarks from the history of C language:

• In 1967, a new computer programming language was announced called 'BCPL,' which stands for Basic Combined Programming Language.
• In 1970 a new programming language called 'B' was introduced by Ken Thompson that contained multiple features of 'BCPL'.
• In 1972, after B language a great computer scientist Dennis Ritchie created a new programming language called 'C' at the Bell Laboratories.
• American National Standards Institute (ANSI) defined a commercial standard for 'C' language in 1989.
• It was approved by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in 1990

History of Java

Here, are important landmarks from the history of the Java language:

• The Java language was initially called OAK. Originally, it was developed for handling portable devices and set-top boxes. Oak was a massive failure.
• In 1995, Sun changed the name to "Java" and modified the language to take advantage of the burgeoning www (World Wide Web) development business.
• Later, in 2009, Oracle Corporation acquired Sun Microsystems and took ownership of three key Sun software assets: Java, MySQL, and Solaris.

Stack Overflow Questions C vs. JAVA

What is the Difference Between C and Java

C Vs Java

Here, are important differences between C vs Java 

Features of C

Here, are important features of C

• Easy to learn
• Structured language
• It produces efficient programs
• C is a basic and core computer programming language. If anyone knows C learning other programs becomes easier.
• Portable and extensible programming language.
• Small in size because it has only 32 keywords, this makes it easy to learn.

Features of Java

Here are the important features of the Java language.

• Write code once and run it on almost any computing platform
• It is designed for building object-oriented applications.
• It is a multithreaded language with automatic memory management.
• Facilitates distributed computing as its network-centric.

Application of C

Here, are important applications of C language:

• Contain basic feature of all programming language
• C can be learned to build programming skills
• Very useful for hardware-dependent programming
• It is used for compiler production.
• 'C' language is used in embedded systems.
• Use for developing an operating system.
• It is used to develop databases. MySQL is the most popular database software that is built using 'C'.
• It is used for developing system applications.
• It is used for developing desktop applications.
• C is also used for developing browsers and their extensions. For example, Google's Chromium.
• Used popularly in IoT applications.

Applications of Java

Here, are important applications of Java language:

• Android apps
• Enterprise software
• Scientific computing applications
• Big data Analytics
• Java programming of hardware devices
• Used for server-side technologies like Apache, JBoss, GlassFish, etc.

Advantages of C

Here, are pros/benefits of C language:

• Procedure oriented language
• Speed of compilation
• Program code is secured
• C program can easily run on another computer without any change or by doing a little change.
• Language code or syntax of C is easy to understand. It uses a keyword like if, else, switch, etc.
• The C compiler is fast compared to other high language compilers.
• It is more efficient than unstructured code because it creates of minimized branching of the code.
• Maintenance of the C code is easy due to the readability of the code.
• Building block for many other programming languages
• Powerful and efficient language
• Portable language
• Built-in functions
• Quality to extend itself
• Structured programming language
• Middle-level language
• Easy Implementation of algorithms and data structures

Advantages of Java

Here, are benefits/ pros of using Java

• Detailed documentation is available.
• A large pool of skilled developers available
• A huge array of 3rd party libraries
• It allows you to form standard programs and reusable code.
• It is a multi-threaded environment that allows you to perform many tasks at the same time in a program.
• Excellent performance
• Easy to navigate libraries

Disadvantage of C

• C does not offer the concept of OOPs
• In the C programming language, the errors or the bugs not detected after each line of code.
• You can't define a variable with the same name in C.
• It is a small and core machine language that offers minimum data hiding and exclusive visibility that affects the security of this language.
• C doesn't have the concept of namespace , constructor, and destructor.
• Run time type checking is Not Available

Disadvantage of Java

Here, are cons/drawback of using Java language

• JIT compiler makes the program comparatively slow.
• Java has high memory and processing requirements. Therefore, hardware cost increases.
• It does not provide support for low-level programming constructs like pointers.
• You don't have any control over garbage collection as Java does not offer functions like delete(), free().