[rcarr]

My two cents on the declarative vs imperative debate:

Yes all code is eventually imperative if you go down low enough. But your code should be as declarative as possible for your user. For example, the business department write a ticket for me to build a new feature. They essentially declare some functionality. I then take the imperative steps to code that on the front or back end. To do this, I will likely need to use some tooling. As far as the tooling is concerned, I am now the user/business department, I declare what I want in the tooling and the tooling should make it for me. The developers of the tooling then write imperative code to handle that. Maybe they rely on tooling to do so, in which case they become the user and so on. The cycle repeats itself recursively until it reaches the machine code at the bottom.

You could even take it further if you like in that the hardware engineers behind the processors are now the developers carrying out the imperative functionality who in turn carry out their job using electronic measuring tools which makes them users etc.

Basically, everything should be declarative by default for the intended user of the application unless they have specifically requested finer grained control. The user has enough to deal with getting their particular task done, they shouldn’t have to navigate between layers building the tools that they need to get their job done. Unless he’s working on something unique that requires it, the tradesman doesn’t want to go to the DIY store and give them instructions to build a drill, he just wants to buy a drill that meets his requirements so he can get on with his job.