Structured programming is a programming paradigm aimed at improving the clarity, quality, and development time of a computer program by making extensive use of structured control flow constructs such as selection (if/then/else), repetition (while and for), block structures, and subroutines. This approach emerged in the late 1950s with the appearance of the ALGOL 58 and ALGOL 60 programming languages.

Key Principles

Structured programming is based on the idea that a program should be composed of simple, hierarchical structures. The main elements of structured programming include:

• Sequence: Ordered statements or subroutines executed in sequence.

• Selection: One of a number of statements is executed depending on the state of the program, usually expressed with keywords such as if..then..else.

• Iteration: A statement or block is executed repeatedly until a certain condition is met, usually expressed with keywords such as while, repeat, for, or do..until.

Code Example

Here is a simple example of structured programming in Python: