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C vs Java

Difference Between C vs Java

C: Almost all of us know who Dennis M. Ritchie is. Yes, C was developed by him between 1969 and 1973 at Bell Labs, and it was used to re-implement the UNIX operating systems. Do you know the project name where C was developed? It’s Multics.

Java: James Gosling is the developer of Java. It was developed at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a component of Sun Microsystems. Initially, it was called Oak after an Oak tree that was outside Gosling’s office. Then it was changed to Green, and finally, it was renamed to Java.

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Head to Head Comparison Between C vs Java (Infographics)

Below are the top 13 comparisons between C vs Java:

C vs Java Infographics

Key Differences Between C vs Java

The key difference between C vs Java are explained in the below-mentioned points:

  • C and Java’s main key difference is the programming paradigm that tells us that C is procedure oriented and Java is data oriented.
  • C does not support the OOPs concept, whereas its counterpart supports OOPs. Thus Java suited when one has to relate things according to the real world.
  • Memory management is also an important aspect that is to be considered because Java do not allow to access any memory which it internally manages, and thus it is easy to focus on developing the business logic.
  • Exception handling is one powerful mechanism in Java that maintains the normal flow of the program in a case of any abnormalities that we cannot achieve directly in C.
  • Portability is also a factor when we compare languages. When income to Java, it wins the race in terms of portability.
  • C also does not supports the concept of threading which is also a big advantage in Java. In today’s day to day environment, threading is a big plus point that allows us to do simultaneous do our work, and with that, we can also save time.

C vs Java Comparison Table

Below is a list of points that describe the comparison between C vs Java:

Basis of Comparison C Java
Language Type Procedural Programming
Language.

  • Let me explain a bit about Procedural Programming Language. A procedural programming language is a type of computer language that specifies a series of well-structured steps and procedures within a programming context to compose a program.
  • It is a compiled language.
  • C is a middle-level language because it actually binds the gap between machine level language and high-level languages. One can use C for system programming as well as application programming.
  • Since we already know that C does not supports OOPs so it lags the property called Inheritance which is very useful in case of code reusability.
 Object-Oriented Programming Language.

  • Object-oriented Programming language (OOP) is a type of programming language in which we define not only the data type of a data structure but also the types of operations that can be applied.
  • The four basics of OOP are Inheritance, Abstraction, Polymorphism, and Encapsulation.
  • It is an interpreted language.
  • Java is a high-level language because it must be translated into machine language using a compiler or interpreter.
  • Due to support for Inheritance, code reusability is possible in Java.
Programming Paradigms (pattern/models)
  • It breaks down to functions.
  • It is more procedure oriented.
  • It breaks down to objects.
  • It is more data-oriented.
Approach
  • Follows a top-down approach.
  • It means it gives much importance to the flow of the program rather than on the data on which it operates.
  • Follows bottom-up approach.
Preprocessors
  • It supports.
  • C Predecessor is a macro processor that is used automatically by the C compiler to transform the before program actual compilation.
  • It is the preprocessor that provides the ability to inclusion of header files, macro expansions, conditional compilation and a few other things.
  • It does not support.
Memory
Management
  • User-based memory management.
  • It supports the use of pointers.
  • Pointers is a programming language object whose value refers to another value stored somewhere in computer memory. It is used to store and manage the address of a dynamically allocated block of memory.
  • It internally manages memory.
  • It does not support the use of pointers.
Portability
  • It is not portable; thus, it is platform dependent.
  • It is portable; thus, it is platform-independent.
  • But we have to keep in mind that we have to install JDK, which provides JVM, and due to it, it is platform-independent.
Object
Management
  • In Cone has to manage it manually.
  • In Java, it is automatically managed by a garbage collector.
Thread
  • It does not support threads.
  • It supports threads.
Memory
Allocation
  • Memory allocation can be done by malloc.
  • For freeing the memory, one has to use it free.
  • Memory allocation can be done by a new keyword.
  • A compiler will do it internally by calling the garbage collector.
Exception
Handling
  • C does not provide a direct mechanism for handling exceptions.
  • errno.h is a header file in the standard library of the C programming language. It defines macros for reporting and retrieving error conditions through error codes stored in a static memory location called an error number.
  • Exception Handling mechanism is available in java for handling error so that the normal flow of the program can be maintained.
Overloading
  • C does not support overloading functionality at all.
  • Java supports method overloading.
  • Overloading is very useful in code readability.
Calling Functionality
  • It supports call by value and call by reference.
  • It only supports a call by value.
Variable Declaration
  • Declaration of variables should be at the beginning of the block.
  • We can declare variables anywhere though it is a good practice to declare the variables at the beginning of the block.

Conclusion

So from the above discussion, we came to the conclusion that C vs Java both are two different programming languages. Java is the most popular language at the industry level for the development of web applications as well as mobile applications. But we can’t deny the fact that C being the oldest one, is also a very popular language. Everything from a microcontroller to operating systems is written in C due to its flexibility and versatility, allowing maximum control with minimum commands. Both C vs Java programming language holds their own position in a different aspect, so there are always points where we can compare but cannot replace each other.

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