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)

Summary

The traditional imperative approach relies heavily upon algorithms that are supposed to produce certain phenomena at runtime—the side effects. The compiler is usually not aware of these phenomena or is not aware of them enough. We can define the side effects for this book as instructions that modify the environment outside their immediate scope. Side effects are usually not desirable, because they put extra mental load on the programmer's mind.

Another problem with the traditional imperative style is the mutation. Mutable data structures are not thread-safe. Also, they cannot be safely passed between pieces of logic even within the same thread.

Functional programming aims to resolve these problems and reduce your mental load. This style does so by abstracting away side effects, so that you write your program without explicitly performing them or mutating anything...