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Disagree. Functional programmers often speak of implementing programs with a pure core and a thin layer on the outside that handles effects. (Read the article I

Disagree. Functional programmers often speak of implementing programs with a pure core and a thin layer on the outside that handles effects. (Read the article I pointed to earlier.) If you don't have a pure core then you are not using FP.

Zababa 5y ago
> Functional programmers often speak of implementing programs with a pure core and a thin layer on the outside that handles effects. No, they don't really. Haskell programmers tend to program like that because monads are annoying to use everywhere in your application. But this is really just the hexagonal pattern in different clothes. DDD programmers care a lot about business logic, so the core is business logic. People that like pure functional programming care a lot about pure functions, so the core is pure functions. Some people even mix both (a good example of that is Doman Modeling Made Functional, the talk or the book). I guess people that care a lot about performance would put performance at the center, at the cost of purity and/or abstraction. Basically this whole pattern is a way to ask yourself "What are my values? What's my priority when I develop software?", and to make sure that it's at the litteral center of your application. So again, you are mixing functional programming, "functional programmers" (which I don't think means anything), and people that value pure functional programming a lot. Which brings us back to react. Is React functional? What does it means, to be functional? I can at least try see what people mean when they say "React is functional". There are probably multiple things: 1) React is more functional than its predecessors. 2) React share values with functional programming. These are a bit fuzzy, but we can try to answer them. 1) React is more functional than its predecessors: It's surely more functional than traditional vanilla JS, jQuery and Angular. I know that before React Backbone was popular, but I don't know anything about it, so maybe Backbone is even more functional than React, which would undermine this point. I may also have forgot some important development along the way (Ember ? Meteor? CoffeeScript? I wasn't into programming at that time so it's hard to judge the popularity/influence of everything). From what I know, I'd say it's a yes. At least in the most popular frameworks (Angular, React, Vue), React is the most functional. 2) React share values with functional programming. On the frontpage of React, we can see "Declarative: React makes it painless to create interactive UIs. Design simple views for each state in your application, and React will efficiently update and render just the right components when your data changes. Declarative views make your code more predictable and easier to debug.". That sounds a lot like what you can hear for some functional programming advocates. "Make the code declarative, be more productive, and the compiler will take care of the performance", in a way. Then there is "Component-Based: Build encapsulated components that manage their own state, then compose them to make complex UIs. Since component logic is written in JavaScript instead of templates, you can easily pass rich data through your app and keep state out of the DOM.". Making a complex UI by composing simple parts again sounds like composing functions in functional programming. "Encapsulated components that manage their own state" feels more like OO though. I can also add that the React community uses Redux a lot, which was inspired by Elm, which itself is clearly functional programming. I've heard that hooks are a way to get closer to functional programming, but I can't confirm this, as I haven't used them. As a conclusion, I'd say that yes, React share values with functional programming, though it doesn't strive for purity (in both senses of the word). So, again, is React functional? Yes, I'd say it is. What does it mean to be functional? I think a good example here would be OCaml. OCaml is a functional programming language. OCaml also allows you to do imperative programming, or object-oriented programming. However, in the wild, most of the OCaml code you find is functional. How functional? That depends. For some people it will mean functions and data structures. For some it will be this with modules. For others, that will be monads. So in general, maybe a bit less functional than Haskell, but more functional than Python or Java. That's the same with React. When we say "React is functional", we mean "probably a bit less functional than Elm, but more functional than Angular and Vue". You're using "functional" in a very specific way, which is usually covered by "pure" or "purely functional", which is unproductive to these kind of conversations.
- flowerlad 5y ago
  I think you have to start by answering this question: What is the benefit of being functional? If there is no benefit then this whole discussion is moot. If there is a benefit to FP that isn't easily achievable using other styles, then does React achieve that benefit by doing FP style? Or is React leaning on the cachet of FP for marketing purposes?
  - Zababa 5y ago
    > What is the benefit of being functional? For React, the idea is building the UI as a function of the state. The benefit is to make the code easier to understand, debug, test, etc. I don't think I have to discuss with your the benefits of pure functions. > If there is a benefit to FP that isn't easily achievable using other styles, then does React achieve that benefit by doing FP style? I think it does, partially. Though it isn't going as far as something like Elm. > Or is React leaning on the cachet of FP for marketing purposes? I would almost say the opposite, React succeeded at first because it didn't push too much the functional stuff. Elm went farther, and doesn't have the market share of React, because insisting too much on FP, especially at that time, would only scare away developers. If you start to go the FP path, at some point you realize that using JavaScript can't work, and you have to switch to something new. People have experience and huge codebases, so they don't want to switch. You can see the same with TypeScript. TypeScript succeeded because it embraced JavaScript, especially its flaws. That means that as standalone language, TypeScript isn't as good as it could be. But as an incremental improvement in the JavaScript ecosystem, it's good, very good. To see what happens when you use FP for marketing purpose, you can take a look at ReScript, the current reincarnation of ReasonML.
    - flowerlad 5y ago
      > > What is the benefit of being functional? > For React, the idea is building the UI as a function of the state Well, if you have state you're already not functional. Look, React does not have to be functional to be useful! Let's not misappropriate the FP label and apply it to a tech that is clearly not functional, misleading a whole generation of developers. React is great, hooks are OK, but FP it is not!!

Zababa 5y ago

> Functional programmers often speak of implementing programs with a pure core and a thin layer on the outside that handles effects. No, they don't really. Haskell programmers tend to program like that because monads are annoying to use everywhere in your application. But this is really just the hexagonal pattern in different clothes. DDD programmers care a lot about business logic, so the core is business logic. People that like pure functional programming care a lot about pure functions, so the core is pure functions. Some people even mix both (a good example of that is Doman Modeling Made Functional, the talk or the book). I guess people that care a lot about performance would put performance at the center, at the cost of purity and/or abstraction. Basically this whole pattern is a way to ask yourself "What are my values? What's my priority when I develop software?", and to make sure that it's at the litteral center of your application. So again, you are mixing functional programming, "functional programmers" (which I don't think means anything), and people that value pure functional programming a lot. Which brings us back to react. Is React functional? What does it means, to be functional? I can at least try see what people mean when they say "React is functional". There are probably multiple things: 1) React is more functional than its predecessors. 2) React share values with functional programming. These are a bit fuzzy, but we can try to answer them. 1) React is more functional than its predecessors: It's surely more functional than traditional vanilla JS, jQuery and Angular. I know that before React Backbone was popular, but I don't know anything about it, so maybe Backbone is even more functional than React, which would undermine this point. I may also have forgot some important development along the way (Ember ? Meteor? CoffeeScript? I wasn't into programming at that time so it's hard to judge the popularity/influence of everything). From what I know, I'd say it's a yes. At least in the most popular frameworks (Angular, React, Vue), React is the most functional. 2) React share values with functional programming. On the frontpage of React, we can see "Declarative: React makes it painless to create interactive UIs. Design simple views for each state in your application, and React will efficiently update and render just the right components when your data changes. Declarative views make your code more predictable and easier to debug.". That sounds a lot like what you can hear for some functional programming advocates. "Make the code declarative, be more productive, and the compiler will take care of the performance", in a way. Then there is "Component-Based: Build encapsulated components that manage their own state, then compose them to make complex UIs. Since component logic is written in JavaScript instead of templates, you can easily pass rich data through your app and keep state out of the DOM.". Making a complex UI by composing simple parts again sounds like composing functions in functional programming. "Encapsulated components that manage their own state" feels more like OO though. I can also add that the React community uses Redux a lot, which was inspired by Elm, which itself is clearly functional programming. I've heard that hooks are a way to get closer to functional programming, but I can't confirm this, as I haven't used them. As a conclusion, I'd say that yes, React share values with functional programming, though it doesn't strive for purity (in both senses of the word). So, again, is React functional? Yes, I'd say it is. What does it mean to be functional? I think a good example here would be OCaml. OCaml is a functional programming language. OCaml also allows you to do imperative programming, or object-oriented programming. However, in the wild, most of the OCaml code you find is functional. How functional? That depends. For some people it will mean functions and data structures. For some it will be this with modules. For others, that will be monads. So in general, maybe a bit less functional than Haskell, but more functional than Python or Java. That's the same with React. When we say "React is functional", we mean "probably a bit less functional than Elm, but more functional than Angular and Vue". You're using "functional" in a very specific way, which is usually covered by "pure" or "purely functional", which is unproductive to these kind of conversations.

flowerlad 5y ago
I think you have to start by answering this question: What is the benefit of being functional? If there is no benefit then this whole discussion is moot. If there is a benefit to FP that isn't easily achievable using other styles, then does React achieve that benefit by doing FP style? Or is React leaning on the cachet of FP for marketing purposes?
- Zababa 5y ago
  > What is the benefit of being functional? For React, the idea is building the UI as a function of the state. The benefit is to make the code easier to understand, debug, test, etc. I don't think I have to discuss with your the benefits of pure functions. > If there is a benefit to FP that isn't easily achievable using other styles, then does React achieve that benefit by doing FP style? I think it does, partially. Though it isn't going as far as something like Elm. > Or is React leaning on the cachet of FP for marketing purposes? I would almost say the opposite, React succeeded at first because it didn't push too much the functional stuff. Elm went farther, and doesn't have the market share of React, because insisting too much on FP, especially at that time, would only scare away developers. If you start to go the FP path, at some point you realize that using JavaScript can't work, and you have to switch to something new. People have experience and huge codebases, so they don't want to switch. You can see the same with TypeScript. TypeScript succeeded because it embraced JavaScript, especially its flaws. That means that as standalone language, TypeScript isn't as good as it could be. But as an incremental improvement in the JavaScript ecosystem, it's good, very good. To see what happens when you use FP for marketing purpose, you can take a look at ReScript, the current reincarnation of ReasonML.
  - flowerlad 5y ago
    > > What is the benefit of being functional? > For React, the idea is building the UI as a function of the state Well, if you have state you're already not functional. Look, React does not have to be functional to be useful! Let's not misappropriate the FP label and apply it to a tech that is clearly not functional, misleading a whole generation of developers. React is great, hooks are OK, but FP it is not!!