Since the invention of high-level programming languages, programming has been dominated by paradigms. From imperative to object-oriented to functiona

Programming beyond paradigms

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2024-04-01 00:30:03

Since the invention of high-level programming languages, programming has been dominated by paradigms. From imperative to object-oriented to functional, paradigms shape much of the modern discourse around programming languages.

Paradigms are often used to categorize the many different languages, styles, and eras of programming. Many universities also structure their curricula around paradigms, offering courses in different styles of progamming. And of course paradigms are an endless topic of debate among programmers: countless blog posts have been written on why functional is superior to object-oriented programming, and vice-versa.

This leads to a natural question: what really is a programming paradigm? The most common understanding is that a paradigm is a set of features in a progamming language that determine its control flow or type system. For instance, this definition can be applied to three prototypical languages created in the 20th century:

Programming languages of the past were limited in the number and breadth of features they could offer. For Java and Haskell, the language designers chose a set of features that they felt would produce the best programs. The creators of C did the same, but were also limited by the feasibility of a feature's implementation.