Introduction to Functional Programming

This video’s accompanying exercises and solutions can be found here.

Functional programming has become an integral part of every professional developer's toolkit. Designed for the basic user of Java, C++, Python, JavaScript, or any other popular programming language, this course explains the principles and methods underlying the functional approach. By the end of this course, you'll be able to think about problems from a functional point of view, making it possible for you to program with pure functions and transform procedural solutions to problems into functional solutions.

• Explore the principles and methods underlying the functional approach to programming
• Recognize the distinctions between functional, imperative, and procedural programming
• Learn to program with pure functions and how they benefit testing, debugging, and memoization
• Discover the three most important must-have functions: Filter, map, and fold
• Learn about higher-order functions, lists, recursion, and monads
• Master the ability to transform a procedural solution to a problem into a functional solution

Barry Burd is a professor of Computer Science and Mathematics at Drew University in New Jersey where he's been explaining programming concepts since 1980. He has a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois and is the author of nine software-centric "Dummies" books including Java For Dummies, Android Application Development All-in-One For Dummies, and more.