Diving Deep: My Journey into Functional Programming – A Technical Exploration
For a long time, I’d heard the buzz around functional programming – the elegant code, the focus on immutability , the promise of easier testing. But frankly, it felt abstract. My background was largely in imperative languages , and the shift felt… significant. This post isn't about converting you to a functional evangelist, but rather about my personal journey into this paradigm, particularly focusing on the deep technical challenges and rewards of embracing it. Before starting, let me share some of great talks I've bookmarked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhuHCtR3xq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0N1aZ6SnBk The Initial Resistance (and Why It’s Valid) Let's be honest – the initial learning curve was steep. Moving from thinking about how to change data to thinking about what to compute was a mental shift. The lack of side effects felt restrictive at first. I wrestled with recursion , struggled to visualize immutable data , and questioned the efficie...