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There's a whole lot of stuff you can do, short of writing interpreters, to construct library-level support for a paradigm in a language that lacks language-leve

There's a whole lot of stuff you can do, short of writing interpreters, to construct library-level support for a paradigm in a language that lacks language-level support for that paradigm. For example, I would say that GTK+ is written in an object-oriented style. But, despite that, I would not say that OOP is a member of C's repertoire of language paradigms.

Jtsummers 8y ago
That is true, some languages are sufficiently expressive to allow other paradigms to be used within them even though they aren't baked in. But it's not true that all languages can support all paradigms (either directly in the language as designed, or indirectly via library support). OO languages and functional languages support each other's paradigms (more easily) than a pure imperative language would support either. And both OO and FP languages support declarative styles (like relational or logic languages) better than C would. EDIT: It's also worth pointing out that C++ really achieved OO (initially) by using macros on top of C. So having a sufficiently expressive meta-language is also important to this. Via such a meta-language, you can achieve many more paradigms in a language than using the language alone. But many languages lack a meta-language or don't have a standard meta-language which people can rely on.
- jdmichal 8y ago
  > It's also worth pointing out that C++ really achieved OO (initially) by using macros on top of C. And this is extremely relevant to the point. If the primary complaint against function programming in Java is "comfort" and "boilerplate"... Macros address both those problems very well. If Java had macros, it would be very simple to isolate and minimize that boilerplate.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Java emulates macros via annotations and compiler plugins.
    - jdmichal 8y ago
      Annotation-based methods are crippled by the limitations of annotation placement. For instance, you can't "annotate" an expression, which is where you will tend to see boilerplate of the type needed for partial application. (Because partial application is easiest emulated as a lambda which routes to the target function while providing fixed values to parameters.)

Jtsummers 8y ago

That is true, some languages are sufficiently expressive to allow other paradigms to be used within them even though they aren't baked in. But it's not true that all languages can support all paradigms (either directly in the language as designed, or indirectly via library support). OO languages and functional languages support each other's paradigms (more easily) than a pure imperative language would support either. And both OO and FP languages support declarative styles (like relational or logic languages) better than C would. EDIT: It's also worth pointing out that C++ really achieved OO (initially) by using macros on top of C. So having a sufficiently expressive meta-language is also important to this. Via such a meta-language, you can achieve many more paradigms in a language than using the language alone. But many languages lack a meta-language or don't have a standard meta-language which people can rely on.

jdmichal 8y ago
> It's also worth pointing out that C++ really achieved OO (initially) by using macros on top of C. And this is extremely relevant to the point. If the primary complaint against function programming in Java is "comfort" and "boilerplate"... Macros address both those problems very well. If Java had macros, it would be very simple to isolate and minimize that boilerplate.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Java emulates macros via annotations and compiler plugins.
  - jdmichal 8y ago
    Annotation-based methods are crippled by the limitations of annotation placement. For instance, you can't "annotate" an expression, which is where you will tend to see boilerplate of the type needed for partial application. (Because partial application is easiest emulated as a lambda which routes to the target function while providing fixed values to parameters.)