| Paradigm | Similarities vs. Differences |
|---|---|
| Functional | It is based on the concept of functions as primary building blocks of a program. Functions are designed to be “pure”, which means return values only depend on argument values. |
| Imperative | It accomplishes a task based on sequence of steps that the computer should follow to reach a desired outcome. Side effects are used (unlike the functional programming paradigm) |
Input: touch screen, voice, camera
Output: screen (display), sounds
(In this course, we only use simple text-based I/O)
Some special cases to remember for the format specifiers
int main() {
pritnf("%%"); // % sign
printf("\\\\"); // backslash
printf("\\""); // quotation mark
}
<aside> 💡 In general, a programming side effect is when the state of something “changes”.
ChatGPT’s explanation: In programming, a side effect is any change that a function or expression makes outside of its own scope. It means that when a function is called and it modifies some external state or resource, it has a side effect (ex. printing something to the console, changing a global variable, modifying a file, etc.)
</aside>
Documenting side effects
// noisy_sqr(n) computes n's square
// effects: produces output
int noisy_sqr(int n) {
printf("Yo! I'm squaring %d!\\n", n);
return n * n;
}
Three types of C statements:
Compound statements (blocks) {} ⇒ a sequence of statements Expression statements ⇒ for generating side effects Control flow statements ⇒ Control the order in which other statements are executed (return if, else)
Two more side effects: