Imperative programming: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:09, 9 February 2023

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The term is often used in contrast to [[declarative programming]], which focuses on ''what'' the program should accomplish without specifying all the details of ''how'' the program should achieve the result.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Imperative programming: Overview of the oldest programming paradigm |url=https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/websites/web-development/imperative-programming/ |access-date=2022-05-03 |website=IONOS Digitalguide |language=en}}</ref>

==Procedural Programming==

==Imperative and procedural programming==

[[Procedural programming]] is a type of imperative programming in which the program is built from one or more procedures (also termed [[subroutine]]s or functions). The terms are often used as synonyms, but the use of procedures has a dramatic effect on how imperative programs appear and how they are constructed. Heavy procedural programming, in which [[State (computer science)|state]] changes are localized to procedures or restricted to explicit arguments and returns from procedures, is a form of [[structured programming]]. FromSince the 1960s onwards1960’s, structured programming and [[modular programming]] in general have been promoted as techniques to improve the [[maintainability]] and overall quality of imperative programs. The concepts behind [[object-oriented programming]] attempt to extend this approach.

Procedural programming could be considered a step toward declarative programming. A programmer can often tell, simply by looking at the names, arguments, and return types of procedures (and related comments), what a particular procedure is supposed to do, without necessarily looking at the details of how it achieves its result. At the same time, a complete program is still imperative since it ''fixes'' the statements to be executed and their order of execution to a large extent.