Classification of the principal programming paradigms

https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/paradigms.html

by jboynyc • 9 years ago

96 36 9 years ago

info.ucl.ac.be

coldcode• 9 years ago

2008 diagram, missing a decade

olavk4• 9 years ago

What new major paradigms do you think it is missing?

smitherfield3• 9 years ago

Type systems, which the chart doesn’t address at all, are now usually considered at least as important an aspect to language’s ‘paradigm’ as the (increasingly-blurry) functional vs imperative distinction. And a lot of the examples are pretty dated, coming as it did at the tail end of the object-oriented and XML fads. And concurrency and especially parallelism are given short shrift.

stcredzero• 9 years ago

I think there's a form of misplaced attention when it comes to programming. There should be a focus on the UX of the programmer. The programming paradigm is just one component of this. It's missing the forest for the trees.

olavk4• 9 years ago

I think the programming paradigm is the foundation in the UX of a programming language. It is the basic conceptual model the language is presenting for the user. It influences almost all parts of the UX from syntax to debugging experience.

lioeters• 9 years ago

There is a phrase "developer experience" ("DX") that I've seen used occasionally. It would be great if that concept could be developed further, similar to how "UX design" has been maturing as a field over the years.

Retra• 9 years ago

For all the maturing "UX design" has done over the years, using a computer still feels mostly like swimming in garbage. Sure, now it's pretty brand-name garbage. But I'd hardly call that an improvement.

segmondy• 9 years ago

What exactly do you mean?

platz2• 9 years ago

Found the rubyist who elevates developer happiness to a first class level language feature

Btw, those concerns are not language "paradigms"

201709User2• 9 years ago

JavaScript: Mistake-oriented paradigm.

tempodox• 9 years ago

That's a perfect foundation for Guilt-Driven Development.

http://tatiyants.com/guilt-driven-development

sctb• 9 years ago

Could you please start commenting civilly and substantively?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

201709User2• 9 years ago

I have no other way to describe weak typing and scoping rules of the said language. I stand by my words.

INTPnerd• 9 years ago

I'm working on a new flavor of the logic paradigm https://github.com/still-dreaming-1/PurposefulPhp

platz2• 9 years ago

Lets just put Oz, Alice, and Curry in every box.

How "state" is classified seems quite ad-hoc.

z1mm32m4n• 9 years ago

The idea of "programming paradigms" is not a useful way to talk about programming language design.

The trouble with programming paradigms is that it is rather difficult to say what one is, or how we know we have a new one. Without precise definitions, nothing precise can be said, and no conclusions can be drawn, either retrospectively or prospectively, about language design. > What, if anything, is a programming paradigm? [0]

Luckily, we've studied programming languages and their design rigorously for decades, and we already have a rich, common language for discussion the design space of programming languages: type theory.

It sounds intimidating: "theory" is often general abstract nonsense that's only useful in academic research, etc., etc. But that's not the case at all. "Type theory" is really just a really useful way to understand individual features of a programming language, and how they compose with one another.

[0] http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2017/05/what-if-anything-is-a-p...

DonbunEf72• 9 years ago

Type theory is only useful up to a certain point; there are plenty of languages that appear identical from a type-theoretic viewpoint but that have deeper richer interpretations in category- or set-theoretic settings. Check out the actual diagram in the article; it shows off some distinctions that would have been totally washed out if only types were considered interesting.

qznc• 9 years ago

If a language has syntax specifically for some paradigm then the paradigm is reflected in the type system. A paradigm is invisible in the type system if it is implemented as library only.

asavinov• 9 years ago

The idea of "programming paradigms" is not a useful way to talk about programming language design.

The term "paradigm" is too general indeed and therefore can be quite ambiguous in many situations because it covers different aspects like the underlying computing model or language design.

olavk4• 9 years ago

The term is perhaps not very precise, but it is a useful shorthand to describe fundamental conceptual difference between say Basic, Haskell and Prolog.

vvanders• 9 years ago

Kinda surprised to see Erlang and Smalltalk in two different columns.

misc_CIA_victim• 9 years ago

There many important dimensions of difference in programming languages that matter to the programmer. Which of those are "fundamental"? What does that question even mean??

One fork in the road between academic/theory answers to that question and developer answers concerns the role of the standard libraries and available IDEs. The out-of-the-box work/contribution of those tools is super important to developers in practice, but irrelevant to academic discussions. Some academics focus on real theory and declare that their statements about PL are basically a kind of applied mathematics - use it if it is somehow relevant to you, and ignore it, like other piles of math, if it isn't. Others make claims that the distinctions capture important properties like preventing careless errors. In that case, one can also talk about which tools are helpful/important to prevent careless errors. And similar remarks can be made for other properties such as speed/brevity of coding/expression, availability of pre-existing parts and ease of integrating them, etc. IMO, there is room for theory that tries harder to abstract the dimensions that drive software practice.

iitalics• 9 years ago

I don't think it's possible to create a satisfying diagram like this. It's already been said, but compartmentalizing languages into "paradigms" is generally pointless.

anon335dtzbvc• 9 years ago

Could someone explain to me why everyone is crazy about type theory? ATM i learn category theory by watching and reading the awesome material from Bartosz Milewski. Should i stop and learn type theory instead, if i want to know more about programming languages in an abstract / general sense?

Classification of the principal programming paradigms

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