What skills do you need to differentiate functional programming from imperative programming?

2 Imperative programming

Imperative programming is a paradigm that focuses on statements, mutable data, and procedural code. A statement is a command that tells the computer to do something, such as assigning a value to a variable or calling a function. Mutable data means that data structures can be changed after they are created, and procedural code means that you write how to achieve something, step by step. Some examples of imperative programming languages are C, Java, and Python.

3 Benefits of functional programming

One of the main benefits of functional programming is that it can make your code easier to reason about, test, and debug. Because pure functions do not depend on or affect the state of the program, you can isolate them and run them independently, without worrying about unexpected interactions or side effects. This also makes your code more modular and reusable, as you can compose functions together to create complex functionality. Functional programming can also help you write more concise and expressive code, as you can use higher-order functions, recursion, and pattern matching to manipulate data.

4 Benefits of imperative programming

One of the main benefits of imperative programming is that it can make your code more efficient and performant. Because you have more control over how the computer executes your instructions, you can optimize your code for speed and memory usage. You can also use mutable data to update values in place, without creating new copies. Imperative programming can also help you write more intuitive and familiar code, as you can follow the logic of the program in a sequential and linear way.

5 Skills for functional programming

To differentiate functional programming from imperative programming, one must develop certain skills specific to the functional paradigm. This includes understanding pure functions and how to write them, utilizing immutable data structures and avoiding mutation, writing declarative code that describes the outcome rather than the steps needed to achieve it, using higher-order functions such as map, filter, and reduce to operate on collections of data, employing recursion, tail calls, and continuations to handle iteration and control flow, and utilizing pattern matching, algebraic data types, and type inference to handle different cases and types of data.

6 Skills for imperative programming

To differentiate imperative programming from functional programming, you need to develop some skills that are specific to the imperative paradigm. This includes understanding statements and how to execute them, as well as using mutable data structures and variables to store and update values. Writing procedural code that specifies the steps to achieve the desired outcome is also essential, as well as using loops, conditionals, and subroutines to handle iteration and control flow. Additionally, pointers, references, and memory management should be used to handle low-level details of data storage and manipulation. Finally, types, classes, and objects should be used to organize and encapsulate data and behavior.