Differences between Procedural and Object Oriented Programming


Both Procedural Programming and Object Oriented Programming are high-level languages in programming world and are widely used in the development of applications. On the basis of nature of developing the code, both languages have different approaches on basis of which both are differentiate from each other.

In this article, we will discuss the important differences between procedural oriented programming and object oriented programming. But before going into the differences, let's start with some basics.

What is Procedural Programming?

Procedural Programming is a programming language that follows a step-by-step approach to break down a task into a collection of variables and routines (or subroutines) through a sequence of instructions. In procedural oriented programming, each step is executed in a systematic manner so that the computer can understand what to do.

The programming model of the procedural oriented programming is derived from structural programming. The concept followed in the procedural oriented programming is called the "procedure". These procedures consist several computational steps that are carried out during the execution of a program. Examples of procedural oriented programming language include – C, Pascal, ALGOL, COBOL, BASIC, etc.

What is Object Oriented Programming?

Object-oriented Programming is a programming language that uses classes and objects to create models based on the real world environment. These objects contain data in the form of attributes and program codes in the form of methods or functions. In OOP, the computer programs are designed by using the concept of objects that can interact with the real world entities.

We have several types of object oriented programming languages, but the most popular is one among all is class-based language. In the class-based OOP languages, the objects are the instances of the classes that determine their types. Examples of some object oriented programming languages are – Java, C++, C#, Python, PHP, Swift, etc.

Differences between Procedural and Object Oriented Programming

The following table highlights the major differences between Procedural Programming and Object Oriented Programming −

Parameter Object Oriented Programming Procedural Programming
Definition Object-oriented Programming is a programming language that uses classes and objects to create models based on the real world environment.

In OOPs, it makes it easy to maintain and modify existing code as new objects are created inheriting characteristics from existing ones.

Procedural Programming is a programming language that follows a step-by-step approach to break down a task into a collection of variables and routines (or subroutines) through a sequence of instructions.

Each step is carried out in order in a systematic manner so that a computer can understand what to do.

Approach In OOPs concept of objects and classes is introduced and hence the program is divided into small chunks called objects which are instances of classes. In procedural programming, the main program is divided into small parts based on the functions and is treated as separate program for individual smaller program.
Access modifiers In OOPs access modifiers are introduced namely as Private, Public, and Protected. No such modifiers are introduced in procedural programming.
Security Due to abstraction in OOPs data hiding is possible and hence it is more secure than POP. Procedural programming is less secure as compare to OOPs.
Complexity OOPs due to modularity in its programs is less complex and hence new data objects can be created easily from existing objects making object-oriented programs easy to modify There is no simple process to add data in procedural programming, at least not without revising the whole program.
Program division OOP divides a program into small parts and these parts are referred to as objects. Procedural programming divides a program into small programs and each small program is referred to as a function.
Importance OOP gives importance to data rather than functions or procedures. Procedural programming does not give importance to data. In POP, functions along with sequence of actions are followed.
Inheritance OOP provides inheritance in three modes i.e. protected, private, and public Procedural programming does not provide any inheritance.
Examples C++, C#, Java, Python, etc. are the examples of OOP languages. C, BASIC, COBOL, Pascal, etc. are the examples POP languages.

Conclusion

The most important difference that you should note here is that procedural programming follows a step-by-step approach to break down a job into a collection of routines and variables by following a series of instructions, whereas object-oriented programming uses objects and classes to create models based on real world environment.

Updated on: 15-Sep-2023

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