Talk:Procedural programming: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:26, 24 September 2019

Revision as of 06:42, 9 December 2021

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: Policy is at [[WP:PAYWALL]]. --[[User:David Biddulph|David Biddulph]] ([[User talk:David Biddulph|talk]]) 19:25, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

== Origin of terms ==

I was under the impression that the term "procedural languages" was originally synonymous with what we mean by imperative programming today. At least, back in the early 1990s when I started learning how to write in BASIC, I heard of the classification "procedural language" and the programming style it describes, but did not hear about "imperative" programming until a few years later. What's the actual story -- when were the terms introduced and when did their meanings diverge so that "procedural" implies something more specific than "imperative"? According to Google Ngram, "procedural programming" gradually appeared in the early 1960s, rose sharply from 1980-1990 and then declined, while "imperative programming" was flat until around 1979, then rose sharply with a similar shape (but smaller). It would be great if anyone has some references pointing to early definitions of the terms. [[User:Destynova|Destynova]] ([[User talk:Destynova|talk]]) 06:42, 9 December 2021 (UTC)