Many Faces

The term “paradigm” in programming language context refers to a broad (almost universal) mindset and approach to structuring code. Within a paradigm, there are myriad variations of style and form that distinguish programs, including countless different libraries and frameworks that leave their unique signature on any given code.

But no matter what a program’s individual style may be, the big picture divisions around paradigms are almost always evident at first glance of any program.

Typical paradigm-level code categories include procedural, object-oriented (OO/classes), and functional (FP):

• Procedural style organizes code in a top-down, linear progression through a pre-determined set of operations, usually collected together in related units called procedures.

• OO style organizes code by collecting logic and data together into units called classes.

• FP style organizes code into functions (pure computations as opposed to procedures), and the adaptations of those functions as values.

Paradigms are neither right nor wrong. They’re orientations that guide and mold how programmers approach problems and solutions, how they structure and maintain their code.

Some languages are heavily slanted toward one paradigm—C is procedural, Java/C++ are almost entirely class oriented, and Haskell is FP through and through.

But many languages also support code patterns that can come from, and even mix and match from, different paradigms. So called “multi-paradigm languages” offer ultimate flexibility. In some cases, a single program can even have two or more expressions of these paradigms sitting side by side.

JavaScript is most definitely a multi-paradigm language. You can write procedural, class-oriented, or FP-style code, and you can make those decisions on a line-by-line basis instead of being forced into an all-or-nothing choice.