Free Essay on Programming Paradigms
Programming involves a series of creative processes in which a
programmer writes instructions that direct a computer on what to do. A
computer program is a set of codes that directs a computer on what to do
in order for it to solve a particular problem or carry out a given task.
Various approaches to developing computer programs exist today. They
include object-oriented approaches (OOP) and procedural programming
(PP).
Advantages of Object-oriented programming (OOP) over Procedural
programming
Object-oriented programming approach is the newer programming
paradigm. It implements the use of abstraction which is in the form of
classes and objects to create objects. Objects are the real world elements
thus the name Object-Oriented Programming. In an object-oriented
application, objects communicate to another to request services. Objects
are capable of sending, receiving, and processing tasks. A collection of
objects makes up a class. Fields and methods are referred to as members
of a class. Object-oriented programming also enforces the use of
modularity which makes the work of developing a program easy. In this
approach, a large complex program is broken down into smaller more
manageable parts. For example in an application that manages a store, a
module that manages finance is designed separately from the one which
keeps track of the stock (Nanz, 2015). These two modules are later
brought together into one big program. This makes the program
manageable and understandable. The process of debugging is also made
easy since a module that contains an error can be tested separately and
debugged. An example of an OOP is C++. Inheritance is one of the best
advantages of OOP over other languages. Objects of one class are able to
acquire characteristics of objects of other class therefore enhancing
reusability of code.
Procedural Programming (PP) on the other hand is a different
programming approach altogether. This approach solves a particular
problem step-by-step beginning from top to the bottom by use of
procedures thus procedural programming. Procedures also called routines
or subroutines interchangeably, tells a computer what to do in a step-bystep manner. PP implements no classes or modularity, therefore, a
program must be completed before being tested making the development
and debugging process complex. An example of procedural language is C
language (Nanz, 2015).
Example of a class with attributes and methods
A class is made up of several objects. Objects depend on classes and
therefore one must have a class before they can be able to create an
object. An example below shows a class and objects.
To declare a class in java, identifier class is used followed by curly braces
between which the body of a class is placed in. Here is an example
Class A
{
//Body of the class
}
Declaring a method on the other hand begins with a keyword static which
is optional. The syntax below shows how a method is declared in java.
[static] returnType identifier (parameters)
{
//Body of the method
}
Here is an example which declares a class called Book and instantiates it
with several objects
In the above example, the two methods which have been used are
getTitle() and getPubYear() which use return statement to return their
respective values. These two objects belong to the class Book. Taking an
example of borrowing a book from a library, a book typically possesses
various attributes such as year of publishing, book title and the publisher
which must be captured in a system as it is in the program above (Smith,
2015).
Features of object-oriented programming that Visual Logic lacks
Object-oriented programs consist of several features that other languages
lack. OOP is one of the creative programming paradigms which ease the
entire programming process. It has several features which other
paradigms lack. When compared with Visual Logic, for example, various
features of OOP are not available in Visual logic. One of the features that
Visual Logic lacks is the feature of polymorphism. This feature basically
means taking many forms. In OOP, polymorphism is a concept in which
functions, variable take different forms. Objects which belong to the same
hierarchical tree may possess the same name but perform multiple
functions. Polymorphism allows a programmer to program in general
rather than doing it in a specific manner. Despite the importance of this
feature, Visual Logic does not implement it. Inheritance is another key
feature that OOP is made up of which Visual Logic lacks.
Inheritance is the feature in which objects of a class inherits the features
of other objects of a different class. This feature enables a class to be
derived from an existing class, therefore, enabling reusability of code.
Advantages of Event driven programming over Procedural programming
Event driven programming is an interesting programming paradigm in
which a program is triggered by events of the user such as the mouseclicks, pressing of keys among other user or thread generated actions.
This paradigm is different from procedural programming in which a
program is program solves a problem beginning from top to bottom.
Execution of a program in event driven programming is much faster
compared to procedural programming. This is basically due to the event
driven program executing only events that have been triggered as
opposed to procedural programming approach where execution is done
from top to the bottom. This also affects the speed of compilation of code.
References
Nanz, S. &. (2015). A comparative study of programming languages in
Rosetta Code. In Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on
Software Engineering-Volume 1 (pp. 778-788). IEEE Press.
Smith, B. (2015). Object-Oriented Programming. Apress.