Java Term of the Week: Imperative Language

The previous Java term of the week talked about JavaFX being a declarative language. This week it seems only fitting to expand on the fact that Java is an imperative language.

An imperative language uses a sequence of statements to determine how to reach a certain goal. These statements are said to change the state of the program as each one is executed in turn. Every Java program is written to execute a number of statements that explicitly tell it how to perform its task.

For example, a program can be created to add a series of numbers:

int total = 0;
int number1 = 5;
int number2 = 10;
int number3 = 15;
total = number1 + number2 + number3;

Each statement changes the state of the program, from assigning values to each variable to the final addition of those values. Using a sequence of five statements the program is explicitly told how to add the numbers 5, 10 and 15 together.