In this posts series, we will be looking at the major programming paradigms and then, at last, we will see which paradigm does python follow.

Hi, have you ever wondered how many programming languages are there? Surfing through the net I found out that there are approx. 256 programming languages till now and still people are working. These languages may have their own pros based on code readability, efficiency or these may be good for different purposes.

But there is one similarity between these languages, that they follow some programming paradigm. We can classify these languages based on which programming paradigm they follow(although many people don’t agree as most of the languages include features from several paradigms so, difficult to classify).

A programming paradigm refers to the style of programming, meaning how you are building the structure and elements of the program. (ufff… Don’t panic from this innocent looking definition, for now just remember that this means some model with a set of rules/features ).There are several features that determine a programming paradigm such as modularity, objects, interrupts or events, control flow etc.

Everyone has an opinion on which programming paradigm/coding style is the best. Sometimes, a single style doesn’t truly solve the problem and you may have to combine different styles on the same problem.

The languages that follow a single paradigm are called “Pure” like Haskell while others are multi-paradigm like python, Java etc.

Common programming paradigms can be “roughly” categorized as:

Although this is not the right way to categorize paradigms. Only for understanding, these paradigms are grouped based on some similar properties. You can see the detailed classification given by Peter Van Roy.

In the next posts, we will look at these paradigms one by one. Till then, Enjoy.

If you have any doubt/suggestion please feel free to ask and I will do my best to help or improve myself. Good-bye until next time.