Seven Languages in Seven Weeks

Day 2: Changing Forms

In this section, you’re going to begin to appreciate Agent Smith’s power. The agents in The Matrix have super-human strength. They can dodge bullets and punch through concrete. Functional languages are at a higher level of abstraction than object-oriented languages. Though they are more difficult to understand, you can express bigger ideas with less code.

Agent Smith can also take the form of any other person in the matrix. That’s an important capability in a functional language. You’re going to learn to apply functions to lists that can quickly shape the list into exactly what you need. Do you want to turn a shopping list into a list of prices? What about turning a list of URLs into tuples containing content and URLs? ...