Tech Mesh London 2012
Ben Moseley, TweetProfessional Functional Programmer
Biography: Ben Moseley
Ben has 28 years of programming experience and has worked for several companies both technological (IBM, NeXT, Apple) and financial, building a wide variety of bespoke software systems. Having spent the first part of his career doing object-oriented development, Ben has become very interested in functional programming over the last 8 years, and has spent the last 5 doing full-time professional development in Haskell - a purely functional language known both for its laziness and its powerful and flexible static type system. He's the co-author of a SPA conference paper "Out of the Tar Pit" on complexity in large software systems.
Ben's blog
Presentation: TweetPragmatism, Puritanism and Functional Programming
This talk will examine the promise, potential and pitfalls of functional programming (FP) - both as a potential alternative to and extension of more widely-used programming paradigms. Drawing on real-world industrial experience of the exclusive use of pure functional programming over the past 5 years, the talk will highlight the benefits but also the limitations of FP. Can all the benefits of FP be gained by extending a traditional language? From a pragmatic, industrial perspective does pure FP go too far? Does it go far enough?
Talk objectives: To investigate the realities of using pure functional programming.
Target audience: Professional software developers who are interested in Functional Programming but maybe have concerns / reservations about how it might play out in the real world. Is it all abstract mathematical nonsense about proving programs correct and talking about Monads, or could it actually be relevant to real people just wanting to get the job done?
Talk objectives: To investigate the realities of using pure functional programming.
Target audience: Professional software developers who are interested in Functional Programming but maybe have concerns / reservations about how it might play out in the real world. Is it all abstract mathematical nonsense about proving programs correct and talking about Monads, or could it actually be relevant to real people just wanting to get the job done?