What is Java used for?

Question

I, as an amateur programmer, am fluent in C, C++, and Python 2&3. I also have a basic understanding of web development(HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.) However, I have never used a language like Java or C#. Could someone please give me a brief overview of these languages, what they are useful for, and if I should take the time to learn them?

Answer 1

Java is actually a very useful language, and is still very much quite popular. Generally, Java is used as a language for developing software applications for Android, PC, and maybe even a few other platforms. What makes it great is that it is sort of the "one size fits all" of programming languages, as nearly any software you create can be transferred very easily to other devices with little to no modification to the code itself. This allows for you only needing to create one code for a program and being able to run it across several platforms and devices. It is also used in Android Studio, although Kotlin seems to be taking over that field, and can also be used for scientific research. I would definitely recommend checking it out, as it is quite a powerful and useful language to know.

C# is similar to Java in the sense that it is used for software development, but it also has its other uses. To start, C# is one of Unity's main scripting languages alongside JavaScript, and is very good at writing different scripts for games. It seems to also be widely used by Microsoft for software development, but they do kind of restrict themselves to only the languages that they created, so it may not be the best option for that. All in all, C# isn't really the best language and you can easily go through life without knowing it, but if you want to get into game development, then I think that it would be useful to know.

Hope this helped! d:

Answer 2

Thank you, that was extremely helpful. C and C++ are very portable languages as well, which makes them very ideal to learn. Since Java is like that as well, I suppose that it is worth learning. I have heard that C# is a MicroSoft specific language, so I probably won't learn it considering that most of my programming is done in a Linux environment(Ubuntu, Debian and even Raspbian.) I will consider learning it when I get the time. Thank you once again for the basic overview of the two languages, and happy coding!