Thoughts on Functional Programming Podcast

What happens when your language is so powerful that small, independent teams can solve their problems without libraries? Does everyone flock to it? Or do you just get a lack of libraries?

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs talked about abstraction barriers as a way to hide the intricacies of data structures made out of cons cells. Is this concept still useful in a world of literal hashmaps with string keys? I say, yes, but in a much more limited way than before. In this episode, we go into what abstraction barriers are, why (and why not) to use them, and the limits of their usefulness.

I’ve gotten several questions about how to do X or Y in the Onion Architecture. It seems like giving the architecture a name has miscommunicated how simple it is. It’s just function calls that at some point are all calculations. In this episode, I try to deconstruct what makes the onion architecture work. Spoiler: it’s just function calls.

Are types compatible with data orientation? The short answer is ‘yes’. Types trade freedom of movement for clarity.

Data orientation allows freedom of movement between layers of meaning. Each interpretation adds a layer of meaning. If the data were hidden, we would not be able to freely interpret it how we want. In this episode, we explore an example of what it means to move up and down the layers of meaning.

We often talk about data orientation in functional programming circles. It basically means programming with data, without hiding your data. Our software is information systems, so why not treat the data in the raw? In this episode, we dive into what is data, what data orientation is all about, and how you program with it.

Total functions are functions that give you a valid return value for every combination of valid arguments. They never throw errors and they don’t require checks of the return value. Total functions help you write more robust code and simpler code, free from defensive checks and errors.

Continuations are a cool feature you often find in functional languages. In this episode, we look at what they are, why you’re probably already using them, and the cool things you can do with them.

Functional programming cannot be suited for everything, right? Well, let’s not be so sure. Functional programming, like imperative programming and object-oriented programming, is a paradigm. It is a fundamental way to approach software. There are many languages that fall within the umbrella of FP. It is quite possible that everything we know how to do in software, we know how to do well with FP, the same way we know how to do it with imperative and with OOP.