[guscost]

Good points.

To someone not familiar with the practice, I'd say that imperative programming is like manufacturing a car step by step, attaching parts to the engine, building the frame and so on. There are a plethora of tasks involved but it's usually clear how to finish them if you know the principles.

Declarative programming is like finding a magic incantation that makes a car pop into existence. It feels great when the default incantation works and you deliver a finished car in five minutes, but things tend to get confusing quickly if you decide that the car needs a customized transmission, a new row of seats, or (heaven forbid) a different number of wheels. Soon you're poring over arcane texts on GearChangeCommands and CabinPresenters and WheelLocators and potentially spending longer than you would have by just building the car in the slow, predictable way.

That said, I can't help but like the declarative style too, and would still prefer it much of the time to build user interfaces.