Book Image

Hands-On Functional Programming in Rust

By : Andrew Johnson
Book Image

Hands-On Functional Programming in Rust

By: Andrew Johnson

Overview of this book

Functional programming allows developers to divide programs into smaller, reusable components that ease the creation, testing, and maintenance of software as a whole. Combined with the power of Rust, you can develop robust and scalable applications that fulfill modern day software requirements. This book will help you discover all the Rust features that can be used to build software in a functional way. We begin with a brief comparison of the functional and object-oriented approach to different problems and patterns. We then quickly look at the patterns of control flow, data the abstractions of these unique to functional programming. The next part covers how to create functional apps in Rust; mutability and ownership, which are exclusive to Rust, are also discussed. Pure functions are examined next and you'll master closures, their various types, and currying. We also look at implementing concurrency through functional design principles and metaprogramming using macros. Finally, we look at best practices for debugging and optimization. By the end of the book, you will be familiar with the functional approach of programming and will be able to use these techniques on a daily basis.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Functional Programming – a Comparison

Functional programming (FP) is the second most popular programming paradigm, behind only object-oriented programming (OOP). For many years, these two paradigms have been separated into different languages, so as not to be mixed. Multi-paradigm languages have attempted to support both approaches. Rust is one such language.

As a broad definition, functional programming emphasizes the use of composable and maximally reusable functions to define program behavior. Using these techniques, we will show how functional programming has adapted clever solutions to many common yet difficult problems. This chapter will outline most of the concepts presented in this book. The remaining chapters will be dedicated to helping you master each technique.

The learning outcomes we hope to provide are as follows:

  • Being able to use functional style to reduce code weight and complexity
  • Being able to write robust safe code by utilizing safe abstractions
  • Being able to engineer complex projects using functional principles