Evaluating emerging programming paradigms: an artifact-oriented approach

A number of programming paradigms have risen and fallen in popularity since the invention of the computer. Many of these have been accompanied by claims that they are more natural ways to program. Little evidence has been offered to justify these claims. One possible way of providing this evidence is to compare programming paradigms to a standard of naturalness. We compare the structured and object-oriented programming paradigms to such a standard: the cognitive paradigm that supplies the general-purpose cognitive tools for one´s daily life. To do so, we propose a methodology that draws upon techniques used in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and comparative linguistics to compare paradigms indirectly through their artifacts. The results of the comparison indicate that the object-oriented programming paradigm can be considered to be more natural than the structured programming paradigm. Further, it indicates that the method of comparing and exploring programming “cultures” though their artifacts opens a number of interesting possibilities