Procedural and Object Oriented Programming Paradigms

 

🔷 Procedural Programming Paradigm

✅ What is it?

Procedural Programming is a programming paradigm based on procedures or routines (also called functions). It follows a step-by-step approach to solving problems.

🧠 Key Characteristics:

• Program is divided into functions or procedures.

• Focus is on functions and the sequence of actions.

• Data is usually global and accessed by many functions.

• Follows top-down approach.

📌 Example (in C-style pseudocode):

int sum(int a, int b) {
    return a + b;
}

int main() {
    int result = sum(5, 10);
    printf("%d", result);
}

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🔷 Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) Paradigm

✅ What is it?

OOP is a paradigm that organizes software design around objects (real-world entities) that combine data (attributes) and methods (behaviors).

🧠 Key Characteristics:

• Program is divided into classes and objects.

• Focus is on data and how to manipulate it.

• Promotes concepts like Encapsulation, Abstraction, Inheritance, and Polymorphism.

• Follows a bottom-up approach.

📌 Example (in Java):

class Calculator {
    int add(int a, int b) {
        return a + b;
    }
}

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Calculator c = new Calculator();
        System.out.println(c.add(5, 10));
    }
}

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🆚 Key Differences

Feature	Procedural Programming	Object-Oriented Programming
Focus	Functions (procedures)	Objects (data + behavior)
Structure	Top-down	Bottom-up
Data Access	Global/shared	Encapsulated in objects
Reusability	Limited	High (via inheritance and polymorphism)
Security	Less secure (global data)	More secure (private/protected data)
Example Languages	C, Pascal, Fortran	Java, C++, Python (OOP style)

✅ Summary

• Procedural Programming is simpler and good for small programs.

• OOP is modular, scalable, and better for complex, real-world applications.