On 6 Jan 2008, at 12:13 PM, Derek Elkins wrote:
On Sun, 2008-01-06 at 09:45 -0800, Jonathan Cast wrote:
On 6 Jan 2008, at 3:02 AM, Derek Elkins wrote:
On Fri, 2007-12-28 at 17:54 -0600, Jonathan Cast wrote:
Programming languages are generally classified into three groups, imperative, functional, and logical.
NB: I will stipulate that most people consider imperative vs. declarative to be a further hierarchy above this division. I will even stipulate that most people consider the procedural vs. OO distinction other than a distraction :) So I should have said: programming languages may be classified into three groups, ... --- where the groups themselves are generally agreed to exist, to be mutually exclusive, and to capture the vast majority of programming languages.
The difference is in the style of programming encouraged (or mandated, for older languages) by the language.
Usually the divide is imperative v. declarative with the four major paradigms (procedural, OO and logic, FP respectively) being subgroups of those divisions.
And your explanation of this classification is?
I find the term `declarative' to be almost completely meaningless.
I was originally thinking of having the final sentence: "There are no clear, accepted meanings for any of these terms."
Many people find any, perhaps all, of the terms: "functional", "object oriented", "imperative" to be almost completely meaningless. Mostly the terms have no prescriptive meaning, but rather are defined by example.
I was trying to work within this framework. Most languages support both imperative and functional paradigms, these days; but there are patterns which are awkward in some languages and natural in others. That is what I consider the main distinction. But, while there are patterns that are natural in all (at least structured) imperative languages and no or few non-imperative ones (like while loops), I don't know of any patterns that are natural in all declarative languages.
At any rate, I wasn't and didn't explain anything as that was not my intention. I was merely pointing out that your usage is against the "norms"
As a statistical statement, this may be true.
and in a way similar in its disconcertingness to saying, "American politics is classified into three groups, conservatives, Democrats and libertarians."
Or like saying "American politics is classified into three groups, statists, Rothbardians, and Randians" :) jcc