Outline of computer programming
Overview of and topical guide to computer programming
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to computer programming:
Computer programming, process that leads from an original formulation of a computing problem to executable computer programs. Programming involves activities such as analysis, developing understanding, generating algorithms, verification of requirements of algorithms including their correctness and resources consumption, and implementation (commonly referred to as coding) of algorithms in a target programming language. Source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to find a sequence of instructions that will automate performing a given task or solving a given problem.
01History
02Platforms
03Paradigms
- Agent-oriented
- Aspect-oriented
- Automata-based
- Class-based
- Concatenative
- Concept
- Concurrent
- Data-driven
- Declarative (in contrast to imperative programming)
- Event-driven
- Expression-oriented
- Feature-oriented
- Function-level (in contrast to value-level programming)
- Generic
- Imperative (in contrast to declarative programming)
- Inductive programming
- Language-oriented (LOP)
- Non-structured (in contrast to Structured)
- Nondeterministic
- Probabilistic
- Process-oriented
- Role-oriented
- Semantic-oriented (SOP)
- Structured (in contrast to non-structured programming)
- Tacit
- Value-level (in contrast to function-level programming)
- Visual
04Writing programs
Methodology
05Algorithms
- List of algorithms
- List of algorithm general topics
- Algorithm characterizations
- Theory of computation
- Search algorithm
- Sorting algorithm
- Merge algorithm
- String algorithms
- Greedy algorithm
- Reduction
- Sequential algorithm
- Parallel algorithm
- Deterministic algorithm
- Randomized algorithm
- Quantum algorithm
06Programming languages
Programming language, formal constructed language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs to control the behavior of a machine or to express algorithms.
- Generational list of programming languages
- List of programming languages by type
- List of open-source programming languages
- Alphabetical list of programming languages
- Comparison of programming languages
- Programming language dialect
- Programming language theory
- Assembly language
- Macro
Attributes of programming languages
- Domain-specific language
- Dynamic programming language
- Esoteric programming language
- Extensible programming language
- High-level programming language
- Interpreted language
- Low-level programming language
- Machine programming language
- Multi-paradigm programming language
- Non-English-based programming language
- Object-based language
- Off-side rule programming language
- Reflective programming language
- Synchronous programming language
- Very high-level programming language
Popular languages
The top 20 most popular programming languages as of December 2025:
- Python
- C
- C++
- Java
- C#
- JavaScript
- Visual Basic (.NET)
- SQL
- Perl
- R
- Delphi Object Pascal
- Fortran
- MATLAB
- Ada
- Go
- PHP
- Rust
- Scratch
- Assembly language
- Kotlin
Anatomy of a programming language
Comparisons of programming languages
Programming language comparisons
- General comparison
- Basic syntax
- Basic instructions
- Exception handling
- Enumerated types
- Anonymous functions
- Conditional expressions
- Functional instructions
- Arrays
- Associative arrays
- String operations
- String functions
- List comprehension
- Object-oriented programming
- Object-oriented constructors
- While loops
- For loops
- Evaluation strategy
- List of "Hello World" programs
- Languages with dependent types
- Comparison of type systems
Comparisons of individual languages
- ALGOL 58's influence on ALGOL 60
- ALGOL 60: Comparisons with other languages
- ALGOL 68: Comparisons with other languages
- Compatibility of C and C++
- Comparison of Pascal and Borland Delphi
- Comparison of Object Pascal and C
- Comparison of Pascal and C
- Comparison of Java and C++
- Comparison of C# and Java
- Comparison of C# and Visual Basic .NET
- Comparison of Visual Basic and Visual Basic .NET
07Compilation
08Software
- Computer program
- Hello world (a common form of example program for learning programmers)
- Application software
- Programming software
- System software
Components
Software development
Software engineering
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Outline of computer programming”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.