What is a software engineering paradigm?

Answer 1

This is a dangerous question. The reason we have so many different paradigms is because no single one is the "most effective" in all general cases. You need to pick and choose for your various projects and problems.

Saying that one is the "best" would show little more than the personal feelings of the person who answers it.

Answer 2

The philosopher, Thomas Kuhn was the first to use the term for science, suggesting that scientific research does not progress towards truths, but is subject to dogma and clinging to old theories. The word, like many scientific terms, comes from Greek, and means example.

He came up with four basic ways in which a paradigm indirectly influences the scientific process. A paradigm dictates:

• What is studied and researched.
• The type of questions that are asked.
• The exact structure and nature of the questions.
• How the results of any research are interpreted.

Kuhn believed that science had periods of patiently gathering data, in a paradigm, and then revolution occurred as the paradigm matured.

A paradigm can absorb some errors but they eventually become insurmountable, like Ptolemy's epicycles, and result in a paradigm shift.

The new paradigm is not necessarily any better than the old, just different. For example, most psychologists weep at the mention of the Freudian paradigm.