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)

Turning effects into data

It's possible to compare the process of writing programs with modeling and describing a particular reality. For example, when you are writing an application for warehouse management, you are encoding in the rules of logic the concept of an online shop, its inventory, the place where the inventory is stored, and the rules according to which this inventory can be moved in and out of the warehouse. This is the reality of the business domain for which you are writing the application. We can say that your goal as a programmer is to model your business domain, that is, to encode it using your programming language into specific logical rules—to define the way information is to be stored, transformed, and interacted with.

However, in the process of execution, programs create their own reality. The same way a warehouse, an online shop, and a user...