@bodil – Now Hold On

View Github Repository Open presentation in a new window

bodil

See all presentation from bodil

@bodil – Now Hold On

1 0

more-than-functions

Slides for the talk "There's More to Life than Just Functions"

On Github bodil / more-than-functions

Bodil Stokke

@bodil

Functional programming

Functions are values Functions can take other functions as arguments Functions can return other functions
MONADS
A monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors. What's the problem?
Not Philip Wadler
class EvenJavaCanMap {
    interface Fn<T> {
        T apply(T value);
    }

    public static List<T> map(Fn<T> fn, List<T> list) {
        List<T> newList = new LinkedList<T>();
        for (T item : list)
            newList.add(fn.apply(item));
        return newList;
    }
}

Haskell

Pure Functions

Referential transparency No side effects

Memoisation

fib 0 = 0
fib 1 = 1
fib n = fib (n - 1) + fib (n - 2)

Memoisation

(defn fib [n]
  (if (< n 2) n
      (+ (fib (- n 1))
         (fib (- n 2)))))

Now Hold On

No side effects means you can't change your state State that doesn't change is not state
...then how do you get anything done?
MONADS

Type System

Powerful compile time static analysis Extensible types The core of your program Monads enabled

Immutable Data Structures

No unexpected side effects guaranteed The easy way to thread safety

Look ma, no mutation

(def primes [2 3 5 7 11 13])
(assoc primes 3 42)
Now wait just a minute...
Wouldn't that be really slow?

Building a linked list

(cons 5 nil)
(cons 4 (cons 5 nil))
(cons 3 (cons 4 (cons 5 nil)))

Clojure

The New Lisp

Homoiconic like a boss Values, not objects Polymorphism without inheritance Concurrent by design And yet, the JVM

Homoiconic

Code and data are one

;; This is a function call:
(max 4 5 6)

;; This is a list:
'(max 4 5 6)

Send men to summon macros

(defn invoke-func [name arg]
  `(~(symbol name) ~arg))

DSLs like a boss!

(use 'hiccup.core)

(html [:body
  [:h1#title "Hello"]
  [:p.article "Hello world!"]])

DSLs like a boss!

(use 'korma.core)

(defentity person)

(dry-run
  (select person
    (where {:name "Bodil" :age [> 18]})
    (order :name :ASC)))

Values, not objects

; Maps
(def pony-types
  {"Pinkie Pie" "Earth pony",
   "Rainbow Dash" "Pegasus pony",
   "Rarity" "Unicorn pony"})

; Sequences
(def ponies
  ["Pinkie Pie" "Applejack" "Rainbow Dash"
   "Rarity" "Fluttershy" "Twilight Sparkle"])

Serialisation, you say?

(def ponies-as-string (str ponies))

((read-string ponies-as-string) 2)
MULTI-CORE LIKE A BOSS

State gonna state

(def counter-state (atom 0))

(defn count-up []
  (swap! counter-state inc)
  @counter-state)

Threads so simple you could cry

(defn sum-to [n]
  (reduce + (range n)))

; (sum-to 250000000)
Yeah, I'm not sure...
Which language is best in life?
Seriously.

Tribalism is dumb

Haskell doesn't let you write bugs Erlang runs forever Clojure is infinitely extensible Java is a mess but very, very fast Go is a clever systems language Even Scala is probably good for something

It depends.

Be the traveller,

not the tribesman.

There is no such thing as a perfect language.

kthxbye.

https://github.com/bodil/more-than-functions