Prg/211 Reusability of Code

Reusability of Code:

A Comparison of Procedural- and Object-Oriented Programming

Terrence Findlay

PRG/211

August 13, 2012

Syam Tangirala

Reusability of Code:

A Comparison of Procedural- and Object-Oriented Programming

Technology permeates and influences everything in society. From satellites in space to the mobile phones in our pockets, we are surrounded by technology all the time. Technology advances in two ways: hardware and software. Hardware advancements accelerate and stagnate in a chaotic cycle, but software advancements are much more steady. These software advancements requires concise, reliable, and reusable programming to build. Procedural- and object-oriented programming are two such types of programming, but do so in very different ways.

Comparison

Two of the major programming paradigms used in coding today are the procedural and object-oriented styles. Comparing the two paradigms is like comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruit, and both can achieve the goal of satisfying hunger, but each is vastly different in terms of color, smell, touch, taste, and nutritional value. Both are very important for programmers to comprehend, and are used daily. Each style has its strengths and weaknesses, and knowing which one will best suit a certain task is a critical skill for programmers to learn.

Procedural Programming

In a procedural program, programming logic follows certain procedures, and the instructions are executed one after another. The focus of procedural programming is to break down a programming task into a collection of variables, data structures, and subroutines and then call upon data as needed to make calculations. This principle is called Top Down Design. This is where you start with a problem and then systematically break the problem down into smaller and smaller problems until all can be solved.

Object-Oriented Programming

Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm that uses abstraction (in the form of...