Book Image

Mastering Functional Programming

Book Image

Mastering Functional Programming

Overview of this book

Functional programming is a paradigm specifically designed to deal with the complexity of software development in large projects. It helps developers to keep track of the interdependencies in the code base and changes in its state in runtime. Mastering Functional Programming provides detailed coverage of how to apply the right abstractions to reduce code complexity, so that it is easy to read and understand. Complete with explanations of essential concepts, practical examples, and self-assessment questions, the book begins by covering the basics such as what lambdas are and how to write declarative code with the help of functions. It then moves on to concepts such as pure functions and type classes, the problems they aim to solve, and how to use them in real-world scenarios. You’ll also explore some of the more advanced patterns in the world of functional programming such as monad transformers and Tagless Final. In the concluding chapters, you’ll be introduced to the actor model, which you can implement in modern functional languages, and delve into parallel programming. By the end of the book, you will be able to apply the concepts of functional programming and object-oriented programming (OOP)in order to build robust applications.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)

Interpretation of the Type Class pattern

Since the idea of a type class is highly abstract, it is necessary to develop an understanding of what it is and how it can be used in practice.

Injectable interfaces

One way to think about the Type Class pattern is as of a way of injecting entire interfaces into existing classes.

In ordinary imperative languages, interfaces facilitate polymorphism. They allow you to treat classes that exhibit similar behavior uniformly. So for example, if you have classes for a car, a motorcycle, and a truck, you can define an interface vehicle, and treat all these classes as instances of that interface. No longer do you care about the peculiarities of the implementations of each class, all you care...