Imperative and Declarative Programming Paradigms

Programming Paradigm Concepts

Eleanor Thomas

Senior Data Analytics Engineer

Imperative and declarative programming

• Two broad categories: Imperative
• Programmer spells out the exact instructions for the program to follow, step-by-step
• How the program should execute

• ... and declarative
• Programmer defines the logic of the program without details of the exact steps to follow
• What the program should execute

Imperative programming

• Imperative programming is used in most mainstream programming languages
• Includes procedural and object-oriented programming
• More common because it is more similar to how a computer works
• Note: Procedural programming is a type of imperative programming, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably

Declarative programming

• Less commonly used than imperative programming
• Functional programming is a type of declarative programming
• Declarative programming is also used in specific programming languages that are not general-purpose

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Programming Paradigm Concepts