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)

Chapter 7

  1. In Scala, Rich Wrapper is a pattern that allows you to simulate method injection into classes.
  2. The pattern is implemented in Scala using the implicit conversions mechanism. Whenever you are trying to call a method on a class that doesn't have this method, the compiler tries to convert the instance of that class into another class that has this method.
  3. See the explanation in the Intuition section in Chapter 7.
  4. The motivation behind the type class pattern is to separate the effect types from their behaviour so that it is possible to define new behaviours and inject them into existing type classes based on different scenarios that arise when performing functional programming.
  5. Yes, imperative languages do have type classes. However, in general, they lack mechanisms for their convenient usage.