1.5. Summary

This book is about becoming a better programmer. Studying functional programming will help with that. The biggest obstacle in our way is the frustration of speaking a new language, particularly letting go of mutable state. But the benefits will be great: a discovery that programming transcends programming in any particular language or family of languages, an exposure to advanced language features, and an appreciation of beauty.

1.5.1. Terms and Concepts

• dynamic typing

• first-class functions

• functional programming languages

• immutability

• Lisp

• ML

• OCaml

• referential transparency

• side effects

• state

• static typing

• type safety

1.5.2. Further Reading

• Introduction to Objective Caml, chapters 1 and 2, a freely available textbook that is recommended for this course

• OCaml from the Very Beginning, chapter 1, a textbook that is very gentle and recommended for this course. The PDF and HTML formats of the book are free of charge.

• A guided tour [of OCaml]: chapter 1 of Real World OCaml, a book written by some Cornellians that some students might enjoy reading

• The history of Standard ML: though it focuses on the SML variant of the ML language, it’s relevant to OCaml

• The value of values: a lecture by the designer of Clojure (a modern dialect of Lisp) on how the time of imperative programming has passed

• Teach yourself programming in 10 years: an essay by a Director of Research at Google that puts the time required to become an educated programmer into perspective