Cranky Frankie wrote:
I appreciate all the comments in this thread so far, but what I'm
really looking for is what to call the style of programming where you
have no direct branching via line numbers, statement names, and gotos.
Structured programming.
I'm finding that lacking these things that I've been familiar with in
other languages is good, in that it forces you to really think through
the best way to organize the logic.
I'm curious what other languages you're familiar with that have GOTOs.
It seems to me that this is such a big departure from traditional
procedural styled programming there ought to be a name for it, other
than structured programming, since you can code that way even with
line numbers, etc.
"Procedural" and "structured" coding are not opposites. By definition,
procedural coding *must* be structured, but a procedural language can still
include unstructured elements. E.g. both C and Pascal include GOTOs.
Unstructured languages like early BASIC was not procedural, since it lacked
functions, but it did have a very weak structural element in the form of the
GOSUB command.
Did you read the link on Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_paradigm
Most languages contain elements of more than one style or paradigm, and styles
overlap considerably. E.g. procedural, object-oriented and functional styles
are all sub-types of structured programming.
Python is also an imperative language: you are (generally) responsible for
specifying the order in which statements are executed. But you can also
program in a more declarative style. Google for Python and Prolog to see examples.
I'd also be interested in reading the Python history file.
This is a good place to start:
http://docs.python.org/py3k/whatsnew/index.html
--
Steven
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