Chapter 1. What is functional programming?
This chapter covers
- The benefits of functional programming
- Problems with side effects
- How referential transparency makes programs safer
- Reasoning about programs with the substitution model
- Making the most of abstraction
Not everybody agrees on a definition for functional programming (FP). In general terms, functional programming is a programming paradigm, and it’s about programming with functions. But this doesn’t explain the most important aspect: how FP is different from other paradigms, and what makes it a (potentially) better way to write programs. In his article “Why Functional Programming Matters,” published in 1990, John Hughes writes the following:
Functional programs contain no assignment ...
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