Editing Computer science (section)

==Programming paradigms==
{{main|Programming paradigm}}

Programming languages can be used to accomplish different tasks in different ways. Common programming paradigms include:
* [[Functional programming]], a style of building the structure and elements of computer programs that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids state and mutable data. It is a declarative programming paradigm, which means programming is done with expressions or declarations instead of statements.<ref>Md. Rezaul Karim; Sridhar Alla, (2017). ''Scala and Spark for Big Data Analytics: Explore the concepts of functional programming, data streaming, and machine learning''. Packt Publishing Ltd. p. 87. {{ISBN|978-1-78355-050-0}}.</ref>
* [[Imperative programming]], a programming paradigm that uses statements that change a program's state.<ref>Lex Sheehan, (2017). ''Learning Functional Programming in Go: Change the way you approach your applications using functional programming in Go''. Packt Publishing Ltd. p. 16. {{ISBN|978-1-78728-604-7}}.</ref> In much the same way that the imperative mood in natural languages expresses commands, an imperative program consists of commands for the computer to perform. Imperative programming focuses on describing how a program operates.
* [[Object-oriented programming]], a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which may contain data, in the form of fields, often known as attributes; and code, in the form of procedures, often known as methods. A feature of objects is that an object's procedures can access and often modify the data fields of the object with which they are associated. Thus object-oriented computer programs are made out of objects that interact with one another.<ref>Evelio Padilla, (2015). ''Substation Automation Systems: Design and Implementation''. Wiley. p. 245. {{ISBN|978-1-118-98730-8}}.</ref>
* [[Service-oriented programming]], a programming paradigm that uses "services" as the unit of computer work, to design and implement integrated business applications and [[mission critical]] software programs.

Many languages offer support for multiple [[Programming paradigm|paradigms]], making the distinction more a matter of style than of technical capabilities.<ref>{{cite web |title=Multi-Paradigm Programming Language |url=https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/multiparadigmlanguage.html |website=MDN Web Docs |publisher=[[Mozilla Foundation]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130821052407/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/multiparadigmlanguage.html |archive-date=21 August 2013}}</ref>