If you're interested in the origins and why's of the Functional Programming idea then this is an interesting read. In the 1960's monads were invented by Category theorists. In the 1970's Functional programmers invented list comprehensions. This paper shows how the two come together.
Showing posts with label Functional Programming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Functional Programming. Show all posts
Friday, May 10, 2019
Why Functional Programming Matters, John Hughes The University, Glasgow
A really interesting paper by John Hughes though really quite old now.
As software becomes more and more complex, it is more and more important to structure it well. Well-structured software is easy to write and to debug, and provides a collection of modules that can be reused to reduce future programming costs. In this paper we show that two fea- tures of functional languages in particular, higher-order functions and lazy evaluation, can contribute significantly to modularity. As examples, we manipulate lists and trees, program several numerical algorithms, and implement the alpha-beta heuristic (an algorithm from Artificial Intelligence used in game-playing programs). We conclude that since modularity is the key to successful programming, functional programming offers important advantages for software development.
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