What is functional programming?

Modified on 1st Jul, 2019 Tom Hazledine

Tom is absolutely nuts about Functional Programming. He goes on about it all the time (mentioning it in almost every episode so far!) but Ed doesn't really know what it is. So what is this fancy programming paradigm that's got Tom so excited? And is he able to explain it clearly and succinctly? (spoiler alert: he isn't!). Will Ed be able to make any sense out of Tom's ramblings? We all know that a monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors, but do any of us know what any of those words mean? Find out all this, and more, in this week's functional instalment of A Question of Code.

Mentioned in this episode:

• What is functional programming?
• Composing Software, book by Eric Elliot
• Functional-Light JavaScript, book by Kyle Simpson
• Fun Fun Function, YouTube channel by MPJ

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