Book Image

JavaScript : Functional Programming for JavaScript Developers

By : Ved Antani, Simon Timms, Dan Mantyla
Book Image

JavaScript : Functional Programming for JavaScript Developers

By: Ved Antani, Simon Timms, Dan Mantyla

Overview of this book

JavaScript is a high-level, dynamic, untyped, lightweight, and interpreted programming language and functional programming is a style that emphasizes and enables smarter code that minimizes complexity and increases modularity. It's a way of writing cleaner code through clever ways of mutating, combining, and using functions. And JavaScript provides an excellent medium for this approach. By learning how to expose JavaScript's true identity as a functional language, we can implement web apps that are more powerful, easier to maintain and more reliable. The java script: Functional Programming for JavaScript Developers course will take you on a journey to show how functional programming when combined with other techniques makes JavaScript programming more efficient. The first module Mastering JavaScript, stress on practical aspects of Javascript development like—Functions and Closures, Runtime debugging techniques, project layout, events and DOM processing, build tools, Object-oriented patterns, isomorphism—everything that a modern Javascript project would need. The second module, Mastering JavaScript Design Patterns - Second Edition, will explore how design patterns can help you improve and organize your JavaScript code. You’ll get to grips with creational, structural, and behavioral patterns as you discover how to put them to work in different scenarios. This updated edition will also delve into reactive design patterns and microservices as they are a growing phenomenon in the world of web development. It will also show you some advanced patterns, including dependency injection and live post processing. The third module, Functional Programming in JavaScript, will help you to write real-world applications by utilizing a wide range of functional techniques and styles. It explores the core concepts of functional programming common to all functional languages, with examples of their use in JavaScript.
Table of Contents (6 chapters)

Chapter 3. Setting Up the Functional Programming Environment

Introduction

Do we need to know advanced math—category theory, Lambda calculus, polymorphisms—just to write applications with functional programming? Do we need to reinvent the wheel? The short answer to both these questions is no.

In this chapter, we will do our best to survey everything that can impact the way we write our functional applications in JavaScript.

  • Libraries
  • Toolkits
  • Development environments
  • Functional language that compiles to JavaScript
  • And more

Please understand that the current landscape of functional libraries for JavaScript is a very fluid one. Like all aspects of computer programming, the community can change in a heartbeat; new libraries can be adopted and old ones can be abandoned. For instance, during the writing process of this very book, the popular and stable Node.js platform for I/O has been forked by its open source community. Its future is vague.

Therefore, the most important concept...