Apache Spark is a popular open-source data processing framework. This widely-known big data platform provides several exciting features, such as graph processing, real-time processing, in-memory processing, batch processing and more quickly and easily.
With the expansion of data generation, organisations have started utilising these vast amounts of data to gain meaningful insights. Big data tools like Apache Spark helps in making sense of the data effectively.
Choosing a language while performing a complete data processing can be a hurdle if you do not know its specifications and how it functions. Further data processing processes such as collection, preparation, processing, interpretation and more can make it daunting. Two of the most popular languages that developers prefer are Python and Scala.
While the former is preferred for its easiness, the latter is preferred for its robustness. These languages help in compressing larger codes into few lines to complete these tasks. In this article, we have compared the two popular languages to make it easy for you to choose one for data processing tasks using Apache Spark.
Before heading into the comparisons, let’s talk a little about the two languages along with some of their advantages.
Python
One of the most popular languages among the developers, Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language. The language includes many intuitive features and functionalities. Python incorporates modules, exceptions, dynamic typing, very high-level dynamic data types, and classes.
The language comes with a large standard library that covers areas such as string processing including regular expressions, Unicode, internet protocols such as HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc., software engineering tasks such as unit testing, logging, and more.
Advantages
- Python is portable meaning that it runs on many Unix variants including Linux, macOS as well as on Windows.
- Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language that can be applied to many different classes of problems.
- It supports multiple programming paradigms beyond object-oriented programmings, such as procedural and functional programming.
- The language has interfaces to many system calls and libraries, as well as to various window systems, and is extensible in C or C++.
Scala
Scala or SCAlable LAnguage is a Java-like programming language which unifies object-oriented and functional programming. It is a pure object-oriented language that is designed to express common programming patterns in a concise, elegant, and type-safe way.
It seamlessly integrates features of object-oriented and functional languages. Scala provides a lightweight syntax for defining anonymous functions. It supports higher-order functions as well as allows functions to be nested and supports multiple parameter lists.
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