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Questions tagged [programming-paradigms]

32 questions
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How do Functional Reactive Programming and the Actor model relate to each other?

FRP is about streaming events and behaviours through pure functions. The Actor model - at least, as implemented in Akka - is about streaming immutable messages (which can be considered to be discrete events) through potentially impure objects,…
Robin Green
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Why do we use persistent data structures in functional programming?

Functional programming employs persistent data structures and immutable objects. My question is why is it crucial to have such data structures here? I want to understand at a low level what would happen if the data structure is not persistent? Would…
gpuguy
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Lambda calculus didn't seem abstract. And I can't see the point of it

The underlying question: What does lambda calculus do for us that we can't do with the basic function properties and notation generally learned in middle school algebra? First of all, what does abstract mean in the context of lambda calculus? My…
JDG
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What problems of procedural programming does OOP solve in practice?

I have studied the book "C++ Demystified". Now I have started to read "Object-Oriented Programming in Turbo C++ first edition (1st edition)" by Robert Lafore. I do not have any knowledge of programming which is beyond these books. This book might be…
user31782
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Is there a paradigm for composing "incremental update" functions in a pure dataflow style?

I don't know the correct terminology for asking this question, so I'll describe it with lots of words instead, bear with me. Background, just so we're on the same page: Programs often contain caches - a time/memory tradeoff. A common programmer's…
Hallting
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Flow-based vs. Reactive programming paradigms

I am reading Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming and came across Flow-based (FBP) and Reactive programming paradigms. Now I have found the following article from J. Paul Morrison, the person who invented FBP. (Update 2025: that…
Jernej Jerin
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What are some interesting/important Programming Language Concepts I could teach myself in the coming semester?

I’m a CS senior with and Individual Study period this coming semester, and I’ve decided I’d like to learn more about Programming Language Concepts. More specifically, different programming paradigms, like Functional and Logic programming. Not sure…
swr52
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Differences between programming model and programming paradigm?

What is the relation and difference between a programming model and a programming paradigm? (especially when talking about the programming model and the programming paradigm for a programming language.) Wikipedia tries to answer my question in…
Tim
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Isn't Functional Programming just Imperative Programming in disguise?

A YouTube video I was watching explained the differences between Imperative and Functional programming by demonstrating how the numbers from 1 to 10 are summed up in Java and in Haskell respectively. In Java, you must explicitly state each step and…
CodyBugstein
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Can we do everything in imperative languages with a functional language if it does not allow for a 'state'?

I was reading Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP), MIT. What I have understood is that in pure functional programming language, there is no such thing as a local state. SICP, pg 230 says: "Programming without any use of…
daltonfury42
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What would be the classification of R according to paradigms?

I would like to know in which classification is the R programming language. It has elements of the imperative paradigm and object oriented paradigm (some things like that even a number is an object and they can be freely mixed). I am not quite sure…
Layla
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Is every von neumann machine turing complete?

I understand that TM is a 'Model of Computation' which tells us about the computational power of a machine while Von Neumann Architecture is a 'System Architecture' that tells us about how the machine is actually been implemented. Also, I think of…
codecasterz
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Is “x' = f(x)” a programming paradigm?

I'm the author of GateBoy (a gate-level simulation of the original Game Boy hardware) and Metron (a C++ to Verilog translation tool). One big issue I had to work around for both projects is the inability of C++ (or really, any current procedural…
tanjent
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Can a purely declarative language really exist?

Wikipedia has several languages listed as declarative languages. One of these languages listed is XSLT, which is a language for applying transformations to XML. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XSLT As I understand it though, imperative languages say…
Alan Wolfe
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The idea behind the state of Imperative languages

I was reading about programming paradigms and I have a question about the state when speaking about Imperative languages. What does it mean to change the program's state? Is it just an abstract idea? I know that C is in the Imperative paradigm (In…
vesii
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