Open Question - I'm a complete novice in programming so please bear with me...Is python equivalent to C, C++ and java combined?

[Roy Smith]

In article <18b67e59-39d1-41e2-8977-b1c449b132e7 at googlegroups.com>,
 pintreo mardi <bigearl497 at outlook.com> wrote:

> Hi, I've just begun to learn programming, I have an open question for the 
> group:
> Is the Python language an all in one computer language which could replace C, 
> C++, Java etc.. I only ask becuase I am starting off with python and I want 
> to learn everything in basic and advanced programming with python itself...So 
> any advice and suggestions would be more than welcome.
> Thanks!!

That's a really hard question to answer, or at least to answer well.

At a theoretical level, when you ask, "Is Python equivalent to C, C++ 
and Java", the answer is "yes".  In computer science, programming 
languages are classified by whether they are "Turing Complete" or not 
(google that for more info).  In theory, any Turing Complete language is 
capable of writing all programs which can be written in any other Turing 
Complete language.  All of the languages you mention are Turing 
Complete, so, theoretically, they are all equivalent.

But, at a more practical level, some languages are easier to learn, some 
run faster, some are more portable, some are more convenient to use, 
etc.  If I had to rank the languages you mention by a few categories, 
I'd say something like:

Python: Easiest to learn (and use), slowest execution speed.

C: Pretty easy to learn, but difficult to write large projects in, 
fastest execution speed.

C++: Hardest to learn, hard to use, speed close to C.

Java: Somewhere in-between Python and C++ on all counts.

All of these are currently in widespread commercial use today, so you 
can't go too far wrong staring out with any of them.  The TIOBE people 
have been tracking programming language popularity for a long time 
(http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html), so 
that's a good place to get some vague idea of what's hot and what's not.

One thing to be aware of is that some programming domains require a 
specific language.  If you want to do iOS, you need Objective C.  For 
Android, Java.  Web front-end programming, Javascript.  No getting away 
from those.  In the server environment, it's a much more wide-open 
field.  People write web servers, for example, in Python, Ruby, Scala, 
Javascript, PHP, Java, and probably a host of other languages.

This has already turned into a longer essay than I intended, but there's 
just one thing I wanted to add.  Whatever you pick to learn first, 
realize that if you embark on a life-long career in programming, it 
won't be your last.  Languages come and go.  I've done serious work in 
(in vaguely chronological order) Fortran, C, Python, Tcl, Perl, C++, and 
PHP.

So, pick one, spend a year getting really good at it, then pick another 
language, preferably one that's very different, and learn that too.  
Repeat every so often :-)