[TYPES] The type/object distinction and possible synthesis of OOP and imperative programming languages
Uday S Reddy
u.s.reddy at cs.bham.ac.uk
Wed Apr 17 05:30:36 EDT 2013
Mark Janssen writes:
> From: en.wikipedia.org: Programming_paradigm:
>
> "A programming paradigm is a fundamental style of computer
> programming. There are four main paradigms: object-oriented,
> imperative, functional and declarative. Their foundations are distinct
> models of computation: Turing machine for object-oriented and
> imperative programming, lambda calculus for functional programming,
> and first order logic for logic programming."
>
> While I understand the interest in purely theoretical models, I wonder
> two things: 1) Are these distinct models of computation valid? And,
> 2) If so, shouldn't a theory of types announce what model of
> computation they are working from?
These distinctions are not fully valid.
- Functional programming, logic programming and imperative programming are
three different *computational mechanisms*.
- Object-orientation and abstract data types are two different ways of
building higher-level *abstractions*.
The authors of this paragraph did not understand that computational
mechanisms and higher-level abstractions are separate, orthogonal dimensions
in programming language design. All six combinations, obtained by picking a
computational mechanism from the first bullet and an abstraction mechanism
from the second bullet, are possible. It is a mistake to put
object-orientation in the first bullet. Their idea of "paradigm" is vague
and ill-defined.
Cheers,
Uday Reddy
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