2.4.2

Programming Paradigms

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Programming Paradigms

There are several different types of programming paradigms to help us solve different types of problems.

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Programming paradigms

  • A programming paradigm is a way of coding to solve a problem.
  • We have 4 types of paradigm and each one is geared towards certain types of situations.
  • Within each paradigm there are many different programming languages that all offer different things to each other.
  • Some programming languages can be used for more than one paradigm.
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Procedural programming

  • Procedural programming is the most common paradigm of programming language.
  • Procedural languages have built in simple data types like string, char, boolean, int and real.
  • Procedural languages focus on a set of instructions that are followed through to achieve a desired outcome at the end.
  • Python is foremost a procedural language.
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Object orientated programming

  • Object orientated programming came about as developers needed to model real world items that could be copied over and over again but given different attributes.
  • An object “class” is set up and shows the attributes (such as colour of a car) and its behaviours (such as engine_start), this class is a blueprint for creating an object.
  • Once a class is defined, it can be reused to create “instances” of the object as many times as the developer needs.
  • Java and Python are object orientated languages.
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Declarative programming

  • Declarative languages use statements to describe a problem to be solved instead of how to solve the problem.
  • The statements are given to the programming language engine, it then figures out how to solve the problem and return a result.
  • SQL is a declarative language.
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Functional programming

  • In functional programming, functions (not procedures) are the blocks we build programs out of.
  • Functions are different to procedures as they have to follow set rules:
  • They must take in valid inputs, return an output, and not have any side effects.
  • Haskell and Python are examples of languages that can be functional languages.

Procedural Programming Languages

Procedural languages are the most common type of programming language.

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Procedural languages

  • Procedural languages have become more popular.
  • Procedural languages now have many libraries of pre-compiled code to use.
    • This speeds up the programming process.
  • Netflix use the python programming language to manage their systems.
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Data types and structures

  • Procedural languages have built in basic data types such as strings, integers, real numbers, boolean and char.
  • Procedural languages also have advanced data structures such as arrays, stacks and queues.
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Procedures

  • Procedural language programs are built up of procedures that perform an action.
  • The procedures are reusable and make it quicker to program.

Jump to other topics

1Components of a Computer

2Software & Software Development

3Exchanging Data

4Data Types, Data Structures & Algorithms

5Legal, Moral, Cultural & Ethical Issues

6Elements of Computational Thinking

6.1Thinking Abstractly

6.2Thinking Procedurally

6.3Thinking Logically

7Problem Solving & Programming

8Algorithms

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