Arizona State University (ASU) CSE240 Introduction to Programming Languages Midterm Practice Exam

The characteristic associated with the imperative or procedural programming paradigm involves the manipulation of named data and the use of conditional statements. This paradigm focuses on how to execute tasks through sequences of instructions.

In imperative programming, the programmer explicitly defines the steps required to change the state of the program by manipulating variables, which are named data locations. Conditional statements enable the program to make decisions based on certain conditions, allowing for the flow of control to change dynamically depending on the situation at runtime. This feature of modifying the program's state through assignments and executing procedures is fundamental in imperative languages, where a clear and defined step-by-step approach is followed.

In contrast, other paradigms like logic programming emphasize expressing computation through logical predicates, whereas object-oriented programming centers around the concepts of inheritance, classes, and objects without necessarily highlighting sequential instruction execution. Additionally, while some paradigms may aim for simpler semantics or other computation expressions, the hallmark of the imperative paradigm lies in its focus on ordered instruction execution and state manipulation through named data.