Chapter 1. What is functional programming?
Functional programming (FP) is based on a simple premise with far-reaching implications: we construct our programs using only pure functions—in other words, functions that have no side effects. What are side effects? A function has a side effect if it does something other than simply return a result, for example:
- Modifying a variable
- Modifying a data structure in place
- Setting a field on an object
- Throwing an exception or halting with an error
- Printing to the console or reading user input
- Reading from or writing to a file
- Drawing on the screen
We’ll provide a more precise definition of side effects later in this chapter, but consider what programming would be like without the ability to do ...
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