A programming language which uses the event paradigm. Other paradigms include the procedural, object-oriented, and functional paradigms.

Events are messages that are generated, at a meta-level or internally in the system, and passed on to tokens inside the system.

Event-driven languages depend on the concept of the event. In most languages, an event is an interruption in the flow of the program. However, in event-driven languages, this property is deemphasized.

Like all programming languages, event-driven languages share properties in common with languages from other paradigms and there is overlap.


One example of an event-driven language is C++ with MFC. Here, there is no visible main() function or global variables; instead, a program consists of methods and fields in a so-called "document" class. The class's constructor connects window system events to methods that will be called on said events.

Program code in an event-driven language only executes when it receives an event. This means that your language must provide a periodic timer event for it to be useful in making games more useful than solitaire, minesweeper, or other similar board games; in particular, such a language without a timer event is not Tetris complete.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.