Unsurprisingly, Python dominated among big data developers that use Apache Spark analytics engine, with 66% citing Python as the language they use with Spark, followed by Java at 34% and Scala at 11%.

When you compare Java vs. Python application development in terms of simplicity, conciseness, security and performance, Java comes out on top in every category.

Java has a lot going for it, but it's not the top language for data science. Java professionals may want to familiarize themselves with Python or R for data science workflows.