What is declarative programming? [closed]

Question

I keep hearing this term tossed around in several different contexts. What is it?

Answer 1

I am sorry, but I must disagree with many of the other answers. I would like to stop this muddled misunderstanding of the definition of declarative programming.

Definition

Referential transparency (RT) of the sub-expressions is the only required attribute of a declarative programming expression, because it is the only attribute which is not shared with imperative programming.

Other cited attributes of declarative programming, derive from this RT. Please click the hyperlink above for the detailed explanation.

Spreadsheet example

Two answers mentioned spreadsheet programming. In the cases where the spreadsheet programming (a.k.a. formulas) does not access mutable global state, then it is declarative programming. This is because the mutable cell values are the monolithic input and output of the main() (the entire program). The new values are not written to the cells after each formula is executed, thus they are not mutable for the life of the declarative program (execution of all the formulas in the spreadsheet). Thus relative to each other, the formulas view these mutable cells as immutable. An RT function is allowed to access immutable global state (and also mutable local state).

Thus the ability to mutate the values in the cells when the program terminates (as an output from main()), does not make them mutable stored values in the context of the rules. The key distinction is the cell values are not updated after each spreadsheet formula is performed, thus the order of performing the formulas does not matter. The cell values are updated after all the declarative formulas have been performed.

Answer 2

Declarative programming is "the act of programming in languages that conform to the mental model of the developer rather than the operational model of the machine".

The difference between declarative and imperative programming is well illustrated by the problem of parsing structured data.

An imperative program would use mutually recursive functions to consume input and generate data. A declarative program would express a grammar that defines the structure of the data so that it can then be parsed.

The difference between these two approaches is that the declarative program creates a new language that is more closely mapped to the mental model of the problem than is its host language.

Answer 3

Declarative programming is when you write your code in such a way that it describes what you want to do, and not how you want to do it. It is left up to the compiler to figure out the how.

Examples of declarative programming languages are SQL and Prolog.

Answer 4

It depends on how you submit the answer to the text. Overall you can look at the programme at a certain view but it depends what angle you look at the problem. I will get you started with the programme: Dim Bus, Car, Time, Height As Integr

Again it depends on what the problem is an overall. You might have to shorten it due to the programme. Hope this helps and need the feedback if it does not. Thank You.

Answer 5

I have refined my understanding of declarative programming, since Dec 2011 when I provided an answer to this question. Here follows my current understanding.

The long version of my understanding (research) is detailed at this link, which you should read to gain a deep understanding of the summary I will provide below.

Imperative programming is where mutable state is stored and read, thus the ordering and/or duplication of program instructions can alter the behavior (semantics) of the program (and even cause a bug, i.e. unintended behavior).

In the most naive and extreme sense (which I asserted in my prior answer), declarative programming (DP) is avoiding all stored mutable state, thus the ordering and/or duplication of program instructions can NOT alter the behavior (semantics) of the program.

However, such an extreme definition would not be very useful in the real world, since nearly every program involves stored mutable state. The spreadsheet example conforms to this extreme definition of DP, because the entire program code is run to completion with one static copy of the input state, before the new states are stored. Then if any state is changed, this is repeated. But most real world programs can't be limited to such a monolithic model of state changes.

A more useful definition of DP is that the ordering and/or duplication of programming instructions do not alter any opaque semantics. In other words, there are not hidden random changes in semantics occurring-- any changes in program instruction order and/or duplication cause only intended and transparent changes to the program's behavior.

The next step would be to talk about which programming models or paradigms aid in DP, but that is not the question here.

Answer 6

Declarative Programming is programming with declarations, i.e. declarative sentences. Declarative sentences have a number of properties that distinguish them from imperative sentences. In particular, declarations are:

• commutative (can be reordered)
• associative (can be regrouped)
• idempotent (can repeat without change in meaning)
• monotonic (declarations don't subtract information)

A relevant point is that these are all structural properties and are orthogonal to subject matter. Declarative is not about "What vs. How". We can declare (represent and constrain) a "how" just as easily as we declare a "what". Declarative is about structure, not content. Declarative programming has a significant impact on how we abstract and refactor our code, and how we modularize it into subprograms, but not so much on the domain model.

Often, we can convert from imperative to declarative by adding context. E.g. from "Turn left. (... wait for it ...) Turn Right." to "Bob will turn left at intersection of Foo and Bar at 11:01. Bob will turn right at the intersection of Bar and Baz at 11:06." Note that in the latter case the sentences are idempotent and commutative, whereas in the former case rearranging or repeating the sentences would severely change the meaning of the program.

Regarding monotonic, declarations can add constraints which subtract possibilities. But constraints still add information (more precisely, constraints are information). If we need time-varying declarations, it is typical to model this with explicit temporal semantics - e.g. from "the ball is flat" to "the ball is flat at time T". If we have two contradictory declarations, we have an inconsistent declarative system, though this might be resolved by introducing soft constraints (priorities, probabilities, etc.) or leveraging a paraconsistent logic.