While we covered programming paradigms in a previous article, the most common way to differentiate between imperative and declarative programming is as follows: imperative programming instructs the computer on how to perform tasks, while declarative programming focuses on specifying what the desired outcome is.
Declarative vs imperative programming: 5 key differences
Daniel Chang
May 29, 2024
8 min read
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Imperative and declarative programming are two of the most popular programming paradigms in software development. Programming paradigms are approaches used to categorize or classify programming languages based on techniques and features they support.
When you’re starting to learn to code, you often begin by mastering constructs such as loops, functions, keywords, etc. While these are vital to learn, beginners will sometimes see less emphasis placed on applying these constructs to coding solutions and structuring them in ways that can help you with real-world problem-solving. Learning about programming paradigms can help bridge that gap.
Today we’ll go over declarative and imperative programming and their differences. By the end, you should have a solid foundational grasp of both paradigms, supported by a couple of code examples.
Let’s get started!
We’ll cover:
Get hands-on with declarative programming today.
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What is imperative programming?#
Imperative programming is the oldest and most basic programming approach. Within the imperative paradigm, code describes a step-by-step process for a program’s execution. Because of this, beginners often find it easier to reason with imperative code by following along with the steps in the process.
The step-by-step process contains individual statements, instructions, or function calls. In the programming world, this process is called the control flow.
In other words, you’re interested in how the program runs, and you give it explicit instructions. Let’s illustrate this with a pseudocode example.
Say you want to build an app that returns the current weather and forecast for a given location. At a high level, you might design the app to work something like this when using an imperative approach:
Begin
Accept location from user input of either location name or ZIP code.
Call OpenWeather's Geocoding API to convert location data into geographic coordinates.
Call OpenWeather's Current Weather Data API.
Send geographic coordinates to OpenWeather.
Call OpenWeather's Daily Forecast 16 Days API.
Resend geographic coordinates.
Parse JSON returned by the APIs to extract current weather and forecast data.
Return current weather and forecast.
Display current weather and forecast to user.
End
In this simple example, imperative instructions dictate what the app should do, when to do it, and how to do it. This pseudocode is comparable to imperative programming, with which you create the logic of the program by making looping statements, calling functions, etc., all in a particular order.
Examples of imperative programming languages include:
- Java
- C
- Pascal
- Python
- Ruby
- Fortran
- PHP
Supporting both paradigms#
You can actually use Python in both declarative and imperative programming. Over the years, some other imperative languages have also received updates allowing them to support declarative-style programming. These include JavaScript, C++, and C#.
C++ in particular has seen several improvements in recent years, many of which make C++ more declarative. For example, newer versions of C++ have the Standard Template Library (STL), which provides four components: algorithms, containers, functions, and iterators.
Among these components are several built-in functions or operations that were previously performed manually, such as std::sort and std::list. Now you can easily use std::sort and continue coding without having to develop an imperative sorting algorithm.
The following code example demonstrates this feature at work:
#include <bits/stdc++.h>using namespace std;int main(){int arr[] = { 7, 5, 4, 9, 0, 1, 3, 8, 2, 6 };int n = sizeof(arr) / sizeof(arr[0]);/*Array before sorting*/for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {std::cout << arr[i] << ", ";}std::cout<<endl<<endl;/*By default, "sort" takes two parameters, the beginning of thearray and the length of the array.*/sort(arr, arr + n);/*Array after sorting*/for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {std::cout << arr[i] << ", ";}return 0;}
What is declarative programming?#
In contrast with imperative programming, declarative programming describes what you want the program to achieve rather than how it should run.
In other words, within the declarative paradigm, you define the results you want a program to accomplish without describing its control flow. Ultimately, it’s up to the programming language’s implementation and the compiler to determine how to achieve the results. This places emphasis not on the execution process, but on the results and their ties to your overall goal. In other words, writing declarative code forces you to ask first what you want out of your program. Defining this helps you develop more expressive and explicit code.
Returning to our weather app example, the pseudocode might look something like this in the declarative paradigm:
Begin
Location submitted by user is location name or ZIP code.
Location is converted into geographic coordinates.
Weather data is retrieved for geographic coordinates.
Weather data is displayed for user.
End
As shown, the pseudocode is descriptive but lacks in detail. Only the result, displaying the weather data, matters to you without regard for the process.
Examples of declarative programming languages include:
- SQL
- Miranda
- Prolog
- Lisp
- Many markup languages (e.g., HTML)
Declarative vs imperative programming: 5 key differences#
Let’s expand on the differences between the two programming paradigms we’re discussing, using the following table for comparisons.
Imperative Programming | Declarative Programming |
1. Computation | |
You describe the step-by-step instructions for how an executed program achieves the desired results. | You set the conditions that trigger the program execution to produce the desired results. |
2. Readability and complexity | |
With the emphasis on the control flow, you can often follow the step-by-step process fairly easily. However, as you add more features and code to your program, it can become longer and more complex, making it increasingly confusing and time-consuming to read. | Step-by-step processes are eschewed. You’ll discover that this paradigm is less complex and requires less code, making it easier to read. |
3. Customization | |
A straightforward way to customize and edit code and structure is offered. You have complete control and can easily adapt the structure of your program to your needs. However, because you might have to deal with more code, you're more likely to run into editing errors than with declarative programming. | Customizing the source code is more difficult because of complicated syntax and the paradigm’s dependence on implementing a pre-configured algorithm. Some declarative programming programs may require more specificity to execute complex algorithms and functions |
4. Optimization | |
Adding extensions and making upgrades are supported, but doing so is significantly more challenging than with declarative programming, making it harder to optimize. This owes to the step-by-step structure of the paradigm and the fact that simple tasks require more code to process. The longer the code, the more likely you will run into errors. | You can easily optimize code because an algorithm controls the implementation. Furthermore, you can add extensions and make upgrades. |
5. Structure | |
The code structure can be long and complex. The code itself specifies how it should run and in what order. Due to the increased complexity, the code can sometimes be confusing because it may perform more than one task. | The code structure is concise and precise, and it lacks detail. Not only does this paradigm vastly limit the complexity of your code, but the code is more efficient. |
Declarative vs imperative programming: Code example#
We’ve discussed the key differences between imperative and declarative programming. Let’s look at a simple code example.
For this example, we’ll use Python. As mentioned earlier, Python can be used in both imperative and declarative programming and is one of the most popular languages today for beginners and experts alike.
Imperative programming#
# Calculate total in the listtotal = 0myList = [1,2,3,4,5]# Create a for loop to add numbers in the list to the totalfor x in myList:total += xprint(total)
In this example, we’ve created a variable named total and set it to 0. We’ve also created a list of numbers, myList, that we want to add to the total.
Next, we’ve created a for loop to access each item in the list individually and add it to the total. Finally, we’ve used the print function to display our final answer (15).
This code follows a step-by-step process. In the first iteration, we add 1 to the initial total (0) to get the new total (1). Then the loop runs again, adding the next number in our list to 1 to get the new total (3). And so on. You’ve defined the process by creating a loop that iterates through the entire list to perform a task.
This process can become time-consuming and increasingly complex as you add features and code. Now let’s look at how we can achieve the same result using declarative programming.
Declarative programming#
mylist = [1,2,3,4,5]# set total to the sum of numbers in mylisttotal = sum(mylist)print(total)
As you can see, the code structure in this example is more concise. Unlike the imperative programming example, we haven’t outlined the steps. Instead of using a loop to iterate over our entire list, we’ve used the sum() method, which works for us.
In other words, you can read the declarative Python code as finding the sum of all the numbers in our list. You only care about the result, not the process.
Get hands-on with imperative programming today.
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Get started with declarative and imperative programming today#
Today we’ve covered the basics of imperative and declarative programming, along with their key differences. In general, you should have a somewhat easier time using declarative programming to achieve your desired results. Although imperative programming is easy to learn, managing code bases written using the imperative paradigm can become complex as you add more features and code. At the same time, you maintain complete control, allowing you to customize your program more.
As you continue your programming journey, you’ll want to learn the features of other paradigms under the umbrella of imperative programming, like procedural programming and object-oriented programming. Under declarative programming, additional paradigms include functional programming and logic programming.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in starting your declarative programming journey, check out the course An Introductory Guide to SQL. It covers creating, updating, and manipulating databases to attain the results you want, all in an interactive, hands-on environment.
If you prefer to start with imperative programming, we recommend the Python for Programmers learning path. The Python programming language is widely popular and can help you gain an edge in the job market.
Happy learning!
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