Regardless of whether a language is high-level or low-level they are further defined into one of the five primary paradigms or styles: Imperative, Declarative, Functional, Logical, and Object Oriented. Each paradigm has features and structures that determine how programming problems are solved. Some languages are multi-paradigm like Python or Java. Certain paradigms are better suited for solving certain types of problems and here is where the understanding of language paradigms is important.
Imperative Programming styles focus on how the program behaves step by step instead of high-level rendition of its anticipated results. Imperative is the oldest and simplest approach to writing software. Examples of imperative languages are Python, Java, Pascal, C/C++ and PHP.
Declarative Programming is often described as the contrast of imperative programming. The declarative method is determining what you want the program to do instead of how. In other words, you define what should be accomplished without describing its control flow. SQL is an example of a language often used with the declarative method.
Functional Programming is a style of coding that is part of the declarative paradigm and is based only on functions (a sequence of instructions which perform a specific task). Functional programming methods have been around since the late 1950’s and are still widely used today in commercial applications found in banking, manufacturing and embedded systems.
Logical Programming style falls under the declarative paradigm and uses mathematical logic to solve problems. Logical methods are found in natural language processing software, machine learning and planning programs, also nearly all AI (artificial intelligence) applications.
Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is an imperative method which organizes software design around data or objects (a data field with unique attributes and behaviours) instead of logic or functions. OOP is beneficial for collaborative development projects and programs where scalability, efficiency and reusability are needed and works well with Java, Object Pascal, Visual Basic.Net and C++.
