Code Less, Create More: How Declarative Programming Paradigm Shapes Modern Mobile Development
With trendy Declarative Frameworks, like SwiftUI, Jetpack Compose, Flutter, and React Native
With declarative frameworks like SwiftUI, Jetpack Compose, Flutter, and React Native getting more and more popular, many developers find themselves struggling to understand the differences between imperative and declarative paradigms in the programming world. Are YOU aware of these distinctions, their benefits, and the reasons behind the declarative mindset’s growing popularity in mobile development?
What is exactly a declarative programming paradigm and why it is so essential for mobile developers?
Declarative programming is a programming approach where developers focus on describing what and how they want the UI to look like, rather than explicitly specifying the step-by-step instructions to achieve it. This way, developers express the desired outcomes, and the underlying system takes care of the details of how to accomplish those outcomes. By describing the app’s behavior and UI in a more natural way, developers can build apps faster, with fewer lines of code.
Overall, declarative programming simplifies the mobile development process, leading to more efficient, maintainable, and user-friendly applications.
What is the difference between declarative and imperative paradigms?
In a nutshell, declarative programming lets you describe what you want, and the computer figures out how to do it.
Imperative programming involves giving the computer detailed instructions for every action.
Both have their uses, but declarative programming often makes things simpler and faster in modern mobile app development. The declarative approach has gained popularity for its ability to simplify code, enhance maintainability, and improve developer productivity.
Give me examples…
Declarative Programming
In mobile development, for example, declarative programming is like describing what you want the app to look like and how it should behave. You focus on saying “I want a button here, a picture there, and when the button is pressed, show a message.”
Imperative Programming
In mobile development, imperative programming is like writing out detailed instructions for the app to follow, step by step. Like you’re building a LEGO structure following a set of step-by-step instructions. You place each brick exactly where the instructions tell you, one by one. You’re in control of every little action and view and how it is presented and connected. You have to carefully outline every action the app needs to take.
If you’re having trouble understanding the declarative approach, think about it in this way:
Imagine you’re an artist creating a painting. Instead of carefully explaining how to mix each color and how to apply each brushstroke, you’d simply describe the overall scene you want to paint. Similarly, in a declarative UI paradigm, developers describe the big picture of the interface they want, and the framework takes care of the small details. This speeds up development and makes the whole process smoother.
Why need for a shift to a declarative paradigm?
This revolutionary shift in (declarative) mindset leads to the creation of code that is not only more intuitive but also remarkably easier to maintain.
Adopting a declarative UI paradigm means that you don’t need to worry about the detailed steps of handling UI parts. Instead, you just need to describe how you want the final UI to look and behave.
How exactly declarative approach speed up the development? Tell me more... What are the benefits?
Here are some of the pros of going in a declarative way of development:
Simplicity and Readability
Declarative code focuses on expressing what needs to be achieved rather than how to achieve it. This leads to code that is more intuitive, concise, and readable. Developers can focus on describing the desired outcome rather than dealing with complex control flow and low-level implementation details.
Reduced Boilerplate
Declarative frameworks and languages often provide abstractions and built-in constructs that reduce the need for writing repetitive boilerplate code. This leads to cleaner and more concise codebases.
Important- The Separation Of Concerns
Declarative programming encourages a clear separation between the UI components and the application logic. This separation makes code easier to manage, test, and maintain.
Reactivity and Consistency
Declarative frameworks often include built-in mechanisms for automatically updating the UI when the underlying data changes. This ensures that the UI remains consistent with the application’s state without the need for manual updates.
Easier Debugging and Testing
Declarative code tends to have fewer side effects and mutable states, making it easier to track down bugs and reason about the behavior of the application. Unit testing is also facilitated by the modularity of components.
Performance Optimizations
Declarative frameworks often use techniques like Virtual DOM diffing (in web development) to optimize UI updates, smart recomposition in Jetpack Compose, and setState in Flutter, ensuring that only the necessary changes are applied to the UI. This can lead to better performance compared to manually manipulating the UI.
Rapid Development
Declarative languages and frameworks provide a higher level of abstraction, enabling developers to quickly prototype and iterate on features.
Less Prone to Bugs
Declarative code reduces the chances of introducing bugs related to mutable state and immutable logic. This can result in more reliable and stable applications.
Future-Proofing
As apps become more complex and platforms continue to evolve, the declarative approach lends itself to adaptability. New features and changes can be integrated seamlessly, thanks to the modular structure.
There are cases where imperative programming is more appropriate, such as when dealing with complex algorithms, performance-critical tasks, or low-level hardware interactions.
However, for most user interface development and higher-level abstractions, the declarative paradigm has proven to be a powerful and efficient approach in mobile development.
Google’s adoption of the declarative paradigm, as seen in initiatives like Flutter and Jetpack Compose for Android app development, reflects a strategic response to the always-changing needs and challenges met in modern software development.
Google decided to change the mindset to declarative to allow developers to express what they want to achieve rather than focusing on step-by-step instructions and to encourage developers to think more about the user experience.
Declarative components are designed to be reusable and composable. Google’s shift to the declarative paradigm aligns with the industry trend of creating modular, maintainable, and easily testable codebases, which results in more efficient UI updates, enhancing app performance and responsiveness.
The shift towards declarative programming is not limited to Google. Other major platforms and frameworks, such as SwiftUI in the Apple ecosystem, are also embracing this approach. A declarative mindset is something you need to adapt if you are in the modern software development world.
Traditionally, mobile development relied heavily on imperative programming, where developers provided step-by-step instructions on how to achieve a task.
Users now expect highly interactive and visually appealing apps. Declarative frameworks make it easier to create such experiences, allowing developers to keep up with user expectations and keep the codebase readable, and modularized, with less code, and with a clear separation of concerns, freeing them from micromanaging every detail of the development process.
Overall, declarative frameworks offer a number of advantages for developing highly interactive and visually appealing apps. They can make our developer’s lives much easier and our codebases more readable, maintainable, modular, reusable, and easier to understand and debug.
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