Functional Programming: Key Concepts

Abstract

In this chapter, you’ll look at the key concepts, building blocks, and vocabulary that you’ll need to understand before getting started on some actual functional programming. Although you are already likely to be using functions and closures in your everyday programming, it’s worth taking the time to read the following sections that describe them from first principles as some of the details that you take for granted when using them in object-oriented or plain procedural programming can trip you up when applying them in the functional paradigm. As functional programming is rooted in math, you’ll also take a look some language that you may be unfamiliar with and see it in terms that are easy to understand for a regular programmer.