Functional and Imperative Object-Oriented Programming in Theory and Practice : A Study of Online Discussions in the Programming Community

Abstract: Functional programming (FP) has progressively become more prevalent and techniques from the FP paradigm has been implemented in many different Imperative object-oriented programming (OOP) languages. However, there is no indication that OOP is going out of style. Nevertheless the increased popularity in FP has sparked new discussions across the Internet between the FP and OOP communities regarding a multitude of related aspects. These discussions could provide insights into the questions and challenges faced by programmers today. This thesis investigates these online discussions in a small and contemporary scale in order to identify the most discussed aspect of FP and OOP. Once identified the statements and claims made by various discussion participants were selected and compared to literature relating to the aspects and the theory behind the paradigms in order to determine whether there was any discrepancies between practitioners and theory. It was done in order to investigate whether the practitioners had different ideas in the form of best practices that could influence theories. The most discussed aspect within FP and OOP was ​immutability and state​ relating primarily to the aspects of ​concurrency ​ and ​performance​ . This thesis presents a selection of representative quotes that illustrate the different points of view held by groups in the community and then addresses those claims by investigating what is said in literature. It was shown that there were no direct discrepancies between the practitioners and the theory.