Procedural Programming Language- Advantages And Disadvantages
A procedural programming language is a computer programming language that typically uses explicit statements or commands to define program flow.
Procedural programming language is one of the basic programming language categories. It is a procedural, step-by-step language. It is designed to work with numbers, text and logical instructions. The programming language is divided into units called subroutines that perform particular tasks and are refined as per your requirements.
Procedural languages are based on the idea that computers can perform repetitive operations and follow well-defined rules to do so. They may also provide facilities for saving and reusing programs in other contexts. The term procedural was first used in 1960 by John Backus to distinguish an algorithm from its implementation.
Advantages Of Procedural Programming Language
There are many advantages that make procedural languages popular among programmers:
1. It is easier to learn procedural programming languages than object-oriented programming languages because it does not require any specific knowledge about the use of objects.
2. Procedural programming can be used to create a computer program that looks like real life operations, such as playing chess, driving a car as well as other physical things.
3. Procedural programming languages are very easy to understand and follow. The syntax is much more straightforward than that of other languages. Also, the code is written with a more human-readable format. This makes it easier for programmers to read and debug the code.
4. Debugging in procedural programming languages is also easier than it is in other languages like C++, Java and other object oriented languages. This is because debugging programs in these languages requires no knowledge of the language itself as they are mostly compiled before they are executed.
5. Procedural programming language allows you to keep your source code more readable and understandable by using simple yet clear syntaxes such as if…then…else…etc., which allow you to write more readable code without having to come up with complicated loops, functions, or procedures in order to accomplish a certain task.
6. The syntax is much simpler than that of other languages like Java for example. This makes it easier for programmers who are new to the language or just want to learn something quickly without getting bogged down in syntax details.
7. Procedural Programming Language can be used in large projects as well as small projects because of its simplicity and efficiency.
8. Procedural programs are also easier to maintain, because they have fewer parts than objects do. You don’t have to worry about changing one part of your codebase that might affect other parts of your codebase or even other applications running on the same system as yours.
9. Since procedural programs are usually smaller in size, they run faster than large, complex object-oriented programs (which often involve lots of inheritance hierarchies and “nesting” of classes within other classes).
Disadvantages Of Procedural Programming Language
1. Procedural programming language cannot be used on large scale projects due to its limited scope because it does not allow you to create complex algorithms and processes that have a great effect on how your system operates like.
2. Procedural programming languages do not allow developers to use advanced techniques for data abstraction, modularization and so on that are available in object-oriented programming languages.
3. Procedural languages do not support the creation of complex algorithms easily, as they only provide basic operations and methods.
4. Less flexibility in terms of data type support (e.g., arrays and records) than object-oriented languages;
5. Limited ability to share code between different modules (e.g., classes);
6. Limited ability to encapsulate an entire program into a single file, which can make sharing code between modules difficult;
Examples of Procedural Programming Language
They include;
- COBOL
- ALGOL
- BASIC
- C
- Pascal
