Functional Programming #

What it it? #

This talk is a really good overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=vK1DazRK_a0.

Personal Observations #

As I’ve writing I’ve done a few projects using Clojure, a functional programming lisp-like language. From those projects, I’ve noticed a few distinct differences between Clojure and Python, the procedural/object oriented language I’m most familiar with.

Programming a function #

When getting down to implementing a specific function in Clojure vs Python, I’ve noticed that Clojure requires more upfront thought and searching to try to find the proper functions to compose together to achieve the desired functionality. In Python, I find it’s much more natural to just start incrementally building a solution, whereas in Clojure I feel like I need to come up with the whole solution all at once, which is more difficult. I think as I learn the Clojure standard library of functions better, this will become easier with time and ultimately I will be implementing less stuff myself than I would be in Python.

I interviewed someone currently working at Nubank for a Google job in Clojure (their preferred language). This underscored to me the above observation - the interview didn’t go very well in part because the candidate had trouble incrementally building up the solution.

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