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Just exposing people to a few basic patterns from functional programming will 1) encourage them to learn a real functional programming and 2) help them write be

Just exposing people to a few basic patterns from functional programming will 1) encourage them to learn a real functional programming and 2) help them write better code. Learning Haskell or Clojure or something is a big task, especially if you're doing it just because you're curious what all this functional programming is about. Everyone understand JavaScript, so being exposed to functional programming there is not a big deal. And I love writing JavaScript with a bit of a functional lean to it. I think it makes it much easier to reason about the code. Of course it's not purely functional, but it's still better than if I wrote it the way many people do.

wyager 10y ago
Or, alternatively, they just say "Hmm, this functional programming stuff doesn't seem very interesting or useful at all. Totally overhyped. Well, back to working with Blub." "Functional" JavaScript is better than regular JavaScript in the same way that bloodletting is better than homeopathy; not much. Perhaps you've fallen into the same trap I'm talking about; do you think you're reaping any significant benefit from functional programming when you apply these sorts of practices to your JavaScript code?
- baron816 10y ago
  One way or another, we're stuck with JS, so we have to use it and hopefully use it in the best way possible. There are genuinely good aspects to it and if you know what you're doing, you can write in a way that's easy for others to read and understand. Including certain functional patterns is part of that, and avoiding stuff that JS is terrible at, like "this", is another.
Nekorosu 10y ago
Clojure(Script) is easy to learn. Especially if you compare it to Haskell. The core of the language is quite simple but leaning standard libraries will take time. This is a good place to start http://clojurescriptkoans.com http://clojurescriptkoans.com
catnaroek 10y ago
> Everyone understand JavaScript, so being exposed to functional programming there is not a big deal. (GHC) Haskell and Clojure are pretty big languages, so it's not surprising that learning them requires a lot of effort, but are you seriously suggesting that learning JavaScript (all quirks included) is easier than learning Scheme or Standard ML (all quirks included)? I've honestly tried to learn JavaScript (in depth, not just whipping something together by gluing libraries foo, bar, qux), but several parts of its semantics continue to baffle me. Like “this”.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  I agree. Reading YDKJS book helped. The trick is to realise "this" is like another argument to the function. It varies by context, and will be set to the created object if new is used, set to global otherwise. You can also use the call function I think to set to something specific. Anyway none of it really makes any deep sense to me, just a load of arbitrary features and traps. FP like Haskell have a deep structure based in theory and maths, so although harder to make sense of initially, one you get it you don't forget it.
- baron816 10y ago
  JavaScript has a lot of really weird/bad aspects to it no doubt, but you kind of have to ignore those parts and keep it simple. I actively avoid using "this" and it makes it so much simpler. There are four cases when "this" won't be what you expect, and the only common one is when it's in a callback, so it's not a huge deal, but I think the language is great when you just avoid it and all its other shitty parts.
  - Roboprog 10y ago
    That's how I feel. It's an otherwise pretty good language saddled with a bunch of misfeatures that the pointy-haired management wanted. (starting with the name itself) Ignoring this/prototype and just using literals and closures goes a long way in simplifying JS, even if it's not as "performant" (formerly, "fast") at firing off that REST call when the user clicks that button. I'm not in a situation to use something like Node on the server, so I'd rather save my development time than a few nanoseconds of the computer's. (managing load times on web clients seems to be 95% of the bottlenecks for what I'm doing lately)

wyager 10y ago

Or, alternatively, they just say "Hmm, this functional programming stuff doesn't seem very interesting or useful at all. Totally overhyped. Well, back to working with Blub." "Functional" JavaScript is better than regular JavaScript in the same way that bloodletting is better than homeopathy; not much. Perhaps you've fallen into the same trap I'm talking about; do you think you're reaping any significant benefit from functional programming when you apply these sorts of practices to your JavaScript code?

baron816 10y ago
One way or another, we're stuck with JS, so we have to use it and hopefully use it in the best way possible. There are genuinely good aspects to it and if you know what you're doing, you can write in a way that's easy for others to read and understand. Including certain functional patterns is part of that, and avoiding stuff that JS is terrible at, like "this", is another.

Nekorosu 10y ago

Clojure(Script) is easy to learn. Especially if you compare it to Haskell. The core of the language is quite simple but leaning standard libraries will take time. This is a good place to start http://clojurescriptkoans.com http://clojurescriptkoans.com

catnaroek 10y ago

> Everyone understand JavaScript, so being exposed to functional programming there is not a big deal. (GHC) Haskell and Clojure are pretty big languages, so it's not surprising that learning them requires a lot of effort, but are you seriously suggesting that learning JavaScript (all quirks included) is easier than learning Scheme or Standard ML (all quirks included)? I've honestly tried to learn JavaScript (in depth, not just whipping something together by gluing libraries foo, bar, qux), but several parts of its semantics continue to baffle me. Like “this”.

bbcbasic 10y ago
I agree. Reading YDKJS book helped. The trick is to realise "this" is like another argument to the function. It varies by context, and will be set to the created object if new is used, set to global otherwise. You can also use the call function I think to set to something specific. Anyway none of it really makes any deep sense to me, just a load of arbitrary features and traps. FP like Haskell have a deep structure based in theory and maths, so although harder to make sense of initially, one you get it you don't forget it.
baron816 10y ago
JavaScript has a lot of really weird/bad aspects to it no doubt, but you kind of have to ignore those parts and keep it simple. I actively avoid using "this" and it makes it so much simpler. There are four cases when "this" won't be what you expect, and the only common one is when it's in a callback, so it's not a huge deal, but I think the language is great when you just avoid it and all its other shitty parts.
- Roboprog 10y ago
  That's how I feel. It's an otherwise pretty good language saddled with a bunch of misfeatures that the pointy-haired management wanted. (starting with the name itself) Ignoring this/prototype and just using literals and closures goes a long way in simplifying JS, even if it's not as "performant" (formerly, "fast") at firing off that REST call when the user clicks that button. I'm not in a situation to use something like Node on the server, so I'd rather save my development time than a few nanoseconds of the computer's. (managing load times on web clients seems to be 95% of the bottlenecks for what I'm doing lately)