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Functional Programming Paradigm

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Introduction
Functional programming is a programming paradigm in which we try to bind
everything in pure mathematical functions style. It is a declarative type of
programming style. Its main focus is on “what to solve” in contrast to an
imperative style where the main focus is “how to solve”. It uses expressions
instead of statements. An expression is evaluated to produce a value
whereas a statement is executed to assign variables. Those functions have
some special features discussed below.

Functional Programming is based on Lambda Calculus:

Lambda calculus is a framework developed by Alonzo Church to study
computations with functions. It can be called as the smallest programming
language in the world. It gives the definition of what is computable.
Anything that can be computed by lambda calculus is computable. It is
equivalent to Turing machine in its ability to compute. It provides a
theoretical framework for describing functions and their evaluation. It forms
the basis of almost all current functional programming languages.
Fact: Alan Turing was a student of Alonzo Church who created Turing
machine which laid the foundation of imperative programming style.

Programming Languages that support functional programming: Haskell,

JavaScript, Python, Scala, Erlang, Lisp, ML, Clojure, OCaml, Common Lisp,
Racket.

Concepts of functional programming:

Pure functions
Recursion
Referential transparency
Functions are First-Class and can be Higher-Order
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Variables are Immutable

Pure functions: These functions have two main properties. First, they
always produce the same output for same arguments irrespective of
anything else.
Secondly, they have no side-effects i.e. they do not modify any arguments or
local/global variables or input/output streams.
Later property is called immutability. The pure function’s only result is the
value it returns. They are deterministic.
Programs done using functional programming are easy to debug because
pure functions have no side effects or hidden I/O. Pure functions also make it
easier to write parallel/concurrent applications. When the code is written in
this style, a smart compiler can do many things – it can parallelize the
instructions, wait to evaluate results when needing them, and memorize the
results since the results never change as long as the input doesn’t change.
example of the pure function:

sum(x, y) // sum is function taking x and y as arguments

return x + y // sum is returning sum of x and y without
changing them

Recursion: There are no “for” or “while” loop in functional languages.

Iteration in functional languages is implemented through recursion.
Recursive functions repeatedly call themselves, until it reaches the base
case.
example of the recursive function:

fib(n)
if (n <= 1)
return 1;
else
return fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2);

Referential transparency: In functional programs variables once defined do

not change their value throughout the program. Functional programs do not
have assignment statements. If we have to store some value, we define new
variables instead. This eliminates any chances of side effects because any

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variable can be replaced with its actual value at any point of execution. State
of any variable is constant at any instant.

Example:

x = x + 1 // this changes the value assigned to the variable x.

// So the expression is not referentially transparent.

Functions are First-Class and can be Higher-Order: First-class functions

are treated as first-class variable. The first class variables can be passed to
functions as parameter, can be returned from functions or stored in data
structures. Higher order functions are the functions that take other functions
as arguments and they can also return functions.

Example:

show_output(f) // function show_output is declared taking

argument f
// which are another function
f(); // calling passed function

print_gfg() // declaring another function

print("hello gfg");

show_output(print_gfg) // passing function in another function

Variables are Immutable: In functional programming, we can’t modify a

variable after it’s been initialized. We can create new variables – but we
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2/15/24, 11:08 PM Functional Programming Paradigm - GeeksforGeeks

can’t modify existing variables, and this really helps to maintain state
throughout the runtime of a program. Once we create a variable and set its
value, we can have full confidence knowing that the value of that variable
will never change.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Functional programming

Advantages:

1. Pure functions are easier to understand because they don’t change any
states and depend only on the input given to them. Whatever output they
produce is the return value they give. Their function signature gives all
the information about them i.e. their return type and their arguments.
2. The ability of functional programming languages to treat functions as
values and pass them to functions as parameters make the code more
readable and easily understandable.
3. Testing and debugging is easier. Since pure functions take only
arguments and produce output, they don’t produce any changes don’t
take input or produce some hidden output. They use immutable values, so
it becomes easier to check some problems in programs written uses pure
functions.
4. It is used to implement concurrency/parallelism because pure functions
don’t change variables or any other data outside of it.
5. It adopts lazy evaluation which avoids repeated evaluation because the
value is evaluated and stored only when it is needed.

Disadvantages:

1. Sometimes writing pure functions can reduce the readability of code.

2. Writing programs in recursive style instead of using loops can be bit
intimidating.
3. Writing pure functions are easy but combining them with the rest of the
application and I/O operations is a difficult task.
4. Immutable values and recursion can lead to decrease in performance.

Applications:

It is used in mathematical computations.

It is needed where concurrency or parallelism is required.

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Fact: Whatsapp needs only 50 engineers for its 900M users because Erlang
is used to implement its concurrency needs. Facebook uses Haskell in its
anti-spam system.

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