Two commonly refered to paradigms are
- imperative languages, and
- declarative languages
However, if this distinction make sense is another question altogether.
Imperative languages
In a imperative language, the programmer's task is to exactly specifiy who a machine gets to the desired outcome.
Imperative languages are further divided into
- procedural and
- object-oriented languages
Declarative languages
In a declarative language, the programmer's task is to specify the desired outcome. The computer will then find a way to get to this outcome.
Arguably, the most successful declarative language is
SQL.
Another well-known example of a declarative programing language is XSLT.