August 2022
Intermediate to advanced
135 pages
2h 51m
English
Content preview from Learning Functional Programming
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Chapter 4. Functional Data Structures
Data structures are a foundational concept in computer science. Along with algorithms, they are a staple of what a computer science student or programmer must master. As with the phrase functional pattern, functional data structure is not an established concept with a consistent definition in the canon of code.
In this book, I will refer to two things as functional data structures.
-
Structures used in functional patterns, such as
Option,Either,Try,List. These are monads. -
Ordinary data structures that are implemented in a functional way so that they don’t mutate state, such as a linked list.
In this chapter, we will treat the first kind of functional data structures and then briefly cover some of the ideas surrounding ordinary data structures implemented in a functional way. Before we look at particular data structures, let me mention an idea about functional data structures that has been discussed in the literature. First, there is this quote from Alan Perlis:
It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
Seasoned functional programmers tend to use a small set of data structures: linked lists, arrays, and hash tables, as well as structures such as Option, Either, and Try, to name a few. We will examine these next. I believe the idea behind this quote is that fewer data structures results in more uniformity and simplicity in the codebase. Now, let’s look at ...
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I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.