Get Functional Programming with Clojure

by John Stevenson @jr0cket clojure.practical.li

@jr0cketSpeaker, author, conference organiser & community obsessed

developer.

Love Clojure, Emacs, Cats, Cycling & Agile development.

@Heroku @SalesforceDevs #Trailhead

In a galaxy far, far away… London, UK

www.practical.li

Why Functional Programmingit's not just because it's really fun...

OO Softwarein actionJosh Smith - Tweet

Original Gif

The Complexity Iceberg

- @krisajenkins

● complexity is very dangerous when hidden

● You can't know what a function does for certain if it has side effects

Side Effects

Pure FunctionsThe results of the function are purely determined by its initial output and its own code

- no external influence, a function only uses local values- referential transparency (the function can be replaced by its value)

Impure Functions - side causesThe results of the function are purely determined by its initial output and its own code

- behaviour externally influenced and non-deterministic

Eliminating Side Effects

Functional programming is about eliminating side effects where you can, controlling them where you can't - @krisajenkins

The features in Functional Programming come from a desire to reduce side effects

ClojureGeneral purpose language hosted on JVM, JavaScript & CLR

Clojure / ClojureScript

A hosted language with simple interoperability with the host language

- (java.Util.Date.)- (js/alert “Client side apps are easier in Clojure”)

Clojure - basic syntax for this talk( ) ;; an empty list. The first element of a list is evaluated as a function call

(function-name data) ;; call a function with the data as its argument

(def name “data-or-value”) ;; assign (bind) a name to a data or legal value

:keyword-name ;; a keyword is a name that points to itself

;; Thread-first macro - chain function calls, passing the result of each call as the first argument to the next function. The ,,, indicates where the resulting argument goes.

(-> (function-a “data”) (function-b ,,,) ;; In Clojure commas , are whitespace (function-c ,,, “data”))

Persistent Data Structures - List, Vector, Map & SetClojure’s built-in data structures are all immutable- returning a new data structure when a function is applied

(list 1 2 3 4 5) ‘(“fish” “chips” 42)

(vec ‘(1 2 3 4)) [1 2 3 4]

{:key “value”} {:name “John” :skill “conferencing”}

(set ‘(1 2 3 4 4)) #{1 2 3 4}

Persistent Data Structures - shared memory

Each function creates a new vector

Memory space for values is shared between each vector

Persistent Data Structures - shared memory

By sharing memory you can apply functions over and over again effectively

Values persist until they are no longer referenced

Higher Order FunctionsFunctions always return a value & can be used as an argument to another function

Composing functions togetherExample: current value of the Clojure project from the configuration file- `slurp` in the project file, convert into a string and return the value at index 2

PolymorphismFunctions evaluate different algorithms based on arity of arguments

Recursion & PolymorphismProcess a collection of values by feeding the remaining elements back to the function

- the sum function is polymorphic, it has different behaviours that could be evaluated depending on if passed 1 or 2 arguments

Recursion - tail call optomisationProtect the heap space from blowing by using the recur function

Using recur in the last line is the same as calling sum, however the memory required from the previous sum function call is over-written in memory. So only 1 memory slot is used instead of 10 billion

Lazy EvaluationOnly return a value when necessary

● maintain precision● optomise evaluation

Sequence / List Comprehension

Iterate over collections

Sequence / List Comprehension

Iterating through a range of generated values to create a list of 2 value vectors

Immutability - local binding

Assignments made locally are immutable

- words is a local binding to the result of running the function upper-case on “Hello World”

- letter->clack is a function that converts a character to a code

Concurrency is Easier

Concurrency is much easier to write and reason about because of

- Immutability by default- Persistent Data Structures- values are immutable- functional isolation & pure functions- state changes managed atomically (software transactional memory)- core.async library allows you to write asynchronous code as easily as sequential

code

Safe State changes

Changing state safely by not changing it

● Persistent data structures● Local bindings

Changing state safely by changing it atomically

● Software Transactional Memory (STM)○ Gives an mechanism like an in-memory atomic database that manages mutable state changes

under the covers

● Atoms● core.async

Concurrency syntax - atoms

An online card game has players that can join and have their winnings tracked

Concurrency syntax - atoms

The join-game function adds players to the atom by their name, but only up to 2 players

Concurrency syntax - refs for sync updatesThe join-game-safely adds players to the ref and alters their account & game account

Putting it all togetherLet's find all the most common words used in a popular Science Fiction novel

Tools to learn Clojureinspire them & build up their motivation

Clojure support in many different tools

Leiningen - Clojure powered build automation

LightTable - Instarepl

Emacs & Spacemacs

Figwheel (flappy birds example)

Examples, examples, exampleswe learn by example...

Over 20 Books on Clojure...

Where to start with Clojure will be different...

Example:

I typically suggested BraveClojure.com as a starting point, however many people prefer LivingClojure or ClojureScript Unraveled...

Help people understand the relevance of a book and if it's the right thing for them at that time.

Clojure.org & ClojureDocs.org

Github

Clojure-through-code Git repository

http://practical.li/clojure-webapps

Testing your Clojure skills...

Clojurian Community in Person

Probably the most active language-specific developer communities in London

Learning by teaching others

I really started thinking in Clojure when I started talking to & teaching others

- Coding dojos- talks on Clojure (starting with the basics, showing the art of the possible)- moving on to running conferences- workshops at hack days

Overtone live performance - MetaX

Overtone live performance - MetaX

Take your own journey into Clojure

@jr0cket@Heroku

@SalesforceDevs #Trailhead

In a galaxy far, far away… London, UK