Functional programming is a style of computer programming that focuses on creating programs as a series of transformations of data. These transformations are manifested in terms of mathematical functions and produce new data as output. Functional languages have features that enable developers to write functional code more easily. There’re varied kinds of functional languages, including Lisp, Scheme, and Haskell.
A resurgence in popularity has led to new interest in functional programming languages such as Scala (from Twitter), Elm (from Facebook) and Elixir (from Plataforma Brasil). Javascript has gained some functional elements through libraries like ReactJS or Elm-inspired libraries like InfernoJS or PreactJS (which also supports IE8+).
Key Feature
Functional programming is a programming style that focuses on creating programs as a series of transformations of data. This transformation is achieved through functions, which can be applied to data and produce new data. The key feature of functional programming is immutability; in other words, the state of the program cannot change over time. All operations are side-effect free (i.e., they have no impact outside their scope) and pure (they only operate on immutable objects). Finally, these transformations are composable.
Logical
Functions are the only way to do something in a functional language, so you can think of them as the building blocks of functional programming. You might have heard this phrase before but what does it mean? In some ways, it’s like saying “programming without side effects.”
In functional languages, functions serve as basic building blocks for all other types of data structures: lists/arrays, sets (unordered collections), maps (key-value pairs), etc. They’re also used to create new data: using simple methods like map() or reduce() you can transform any type into something new! You can even combine different types together into one big list–say goodbye to loops forever!
Easy to work with
Functional programming is a style of writing code that focuses on building programs by composing functions.
They all share the following features:
- Functions are first-class citizens
- Programs are built out of small functions that use only a few values
- The program may be put into a “normal form” which has no repeated expressions and no unnecessary information (Reduce everything to its simplest form)
Commonly used
You might not have noticed, but functional programming has been around for a long time. It’s been used by people like Alan Turing and John McCarthy since the 1950s.
It’s not a replacement for all these other styles of coding either — that would be impossible! Instead of replacing any existing pattern in modern software development, functional languages have been added to our toolbox to provide another approach that may be both more efficient and less error-prone than the alternatives.
Functional programming emphasizes writing functions as mathematical equations to create correct programs, thus, there is no need to worry about side effects or how state changes over time.
Many languages have adopted this style over the years, but only recently has it gained popularity with developers and companies again (the last time being in the 1960s). This can be seen by some new additions to popular languages like Python 3 and JavaScript ES6+.
Widely applied
Functional programming is being applied to new problems. Today, functional programming is being used to solve problems in areas like finance, healthcare and manufacturing. It’s also being used to build distributed systems, microservices and other types of software where it’s necessary for the code base to be manageable in size and complexity.
Javascript is gaining functional elements
The Javascript programming language is gaining functional elements, and it’s becoming a popular choice for developers building web apps or microservices. JavaScript is also utilized to write mobile apps, serverless applications, chatbots, etc.
Further perspectives
It’s worth mentioning that it’s not a new concept, it has been around for decades. However, with the rise of JavaScript frameworks like ReactJS (the most popular UI framework used on the web), developers are starting to use functional concepts more frequently in their codebases.
The popularity of TypeScript and FlowType has also played a role in this growing trend by allowing developers who prefer traditional Object-Oriented (OOP) languages like Java or C# have access to features such as type checking while still being able to write OOP code if they choose too.
Summary
Functional programming has been around for decades, but it’s likely that we’ll see more languages and tools built with functional programming in mind. The next generation of developers will be better able to build software that scales and runs faster while being easier to maintain than ever before thanks to the principles behind FP.
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