What are Programming Paradigms?

Programming Paradigm Concepts

Eleanor Thomas

Senior Data Analytics Engineer

What is a paradigm?

• A standard, a perspective, or a set of ideas for operating
• A way of thinking about a topic or approaching a problem
• Example: the view that the Earth is round, and not flat.

What is a programming paradigm?

• Program: set of written instructions to tell a computer what to do
• Programming paradigm: style or way of approaching writing programs
• Can be used to classify programs based on their features
• Different programming paradigms for different tasks
• Examples:
  • Procedural programming
  • Functional programming
  • Object-oriented programming

What is a programming language?

• Programming languages vs. programming paradigms
• Programming language: a specific system of notation for writing programs
• Examples:
  • Python
  • Java
  • Scala
  • C++

Programming paradigms vs. programming languages

• Can have more than one programming language per programming paradigm
• New languages created for the same paradigm

• Also possible to have more than one programming paradigm per programming language
• Python can be used for procedural, functional, and object-oriented programming

Let's practice!

Programming Paradigm Concepts