Programming Language Paradigms

1
Programming Language Paradigms

• ITSK2314
• Lecture 3

2
Agenda

• What is a programming language
• Abstractions
• History
• Computational Paradigms

3
Programming Language Defined

• Notation system
• Symbols/grammar
• Describe computation
• Anything a computer can do (Turing)
• Machine-readable
• Unambiguous, finite algorithm
• Human-readable
• Abstraction mechanisms needed

4
Design Issues

• Efficiency
• Writability
• Readability
• Expressiveness
• Orthogonality
• Simplicity
• Extensibility
• Machine Independence
• Security

5
Abstractions

• Data abstractions
• Variables
• Structures
• Unit abstractions
• Abstract Data Types (classes)
• Packages
• Procedures, functions, methods
• Control abstractions
• Assignment
• Goto
• If-then, case/switch
• loops

6
History

• 1830s/1840s
• Charles Babbage (Analytical Engine)
• Ada Lovelace
• First programmer
• Sequence of cards w/ data operations
• 1950s
• First programming languages
• COBOL, LISP, Algol
• First high-level language FORTRAN
• 1960s
• Special-purpose languages (gt 100)
• 1970s
• Simplicity, structure, efficient
• Pascal, C
• 1980s
• Object-oriented languages
• 1990s
• Libraries, scripting, distributed/network
  computing

7
Computational Paradigms

• Imperative/Procedural
• C, Pascal
• Functional (applicative)
• LISP, Scheme
• Logic
• Prolog
• Object-oriented
• C, Java, C, Smalltalk
• Parallel
• C, FORTRAN
• Distributed

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FIN