Programming Paradigms

The programming paradigm is the way of writing computer programs.

The programming paradigm is the way of writing computer programs. There are four programming paradigms and they are as follows.

  • Monolithic programming paradigm
  • Structured-oriented programming paradigm
  • Procedural-oriented programming paradigm
  • Object-oriented programming paradigm

Monolithic Programming Paradigm

The Monolithic programming paradigm is the oldest. It has the following characteristics. It is also known as the imperative programming paradigm.

  • In this programming paradigm, the whole program is written in a single block.
  • We use the goto statement to jump from one statement to another statement.
  • It uses all data as global data which leads to data insecurity.
  • There are no flow control statements like if, switch, for, and while statements in this paradigm.
  • There is no concept of data types.

An example of a Monolithic programming paradigm is Assembly language.


Structured-oriented Programming Paradigm

The Structure-oriented programming paradigm is the advanced paradigm of the monolithic paradigm. It has the following characteristics.

  • This paradigm introduces a modular programming concept where a larger program is divided into smaller modules.
  • It provides the concept of code reusability.
  • It is introduced with the concept of data types.
  • It also provides flow control statements that provide more control to the user.
  • In this paradigm, all the data is used as global data which leads to data insecurity.

Examples of a structured-oriented programming paradigm is ALGOL, Pascal, PL/I and Ada.


Procedural-oriented Programming Paradigm

The procedure-oriented programming paradigm is the advanced paradigm of a structure-oriented paradigm. It has the following characteristics.

  • This paradigm introduces a modular programming concept where a larger program is divided into smaller modules.
  • It provides the concept of code reusability.
  • It is introduced with the concept of data types.
  • It also provides flow control statements that provide more control to the user.
  • It follows all the concepts of structure-oriented programming paradigm but the data is defined as global data, and also local data to the individual modules.
  • In this paradigm, functions may transform data from one form to another.

Examples of procedure-oriented programming paradigm is C, Visual Basic, FORTRAN, etc.


Object-oriented Programming Paradigm

The object-oriented programming paradigm is the most popular. It has the following characteristics.

  • In this paradigm, the whole program is created on the concept of objects.
  • In this paradigm, objects may communicate with each other through function.
  • This paradigm mainly focuses on data rather than functionality.
  • In this paradigm, programs are divided into what are known as objects.
  • It follows the bottom-up flow of execution.
  • It introduces concepts like data abstraction, inheritance, and overloading of functions and operators overloading.
  • In this paradigm, data is hidden and cannot be accessed by an external function.
  • It has the concept of friend functions and virtual functions.
  • In this paradigm, everything belongs to objects.

Examples of procedure-oriented programming paradigm is C++, Java, C#, Python, etc.