Understanding functional programming

Authors:
Richard Wyatt
Affiliations:
Department of Computer Science, West Chester University, West Chester, PA
Venue:
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Year:
2003

Citing 5
Cited 2

Programming language concepts and paradigms

Programming language concepts and paradigms
Computing curricula 1991: Report of the ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force

Computing curricula 1991: Report of the ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force
Elements of ML programming (ML97 ed.)

Elements of ML programming (ML97 ed.)
Can programming be liberated from the von Neumann style?: a functional style and its algebra of programs

Communications of the ACM
Programming Language Theory and Its Implementation

Programming Language Theory and Its Implementation

The lambda calculus in functional programming

Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Some prospective approaches for the shift of programming paradigms

Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Information Systems and Design of Communication

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

In my programming languages course, I have found that an effective and convincing introduction to functional programming is harder to deliver than might be thought. Careful communications with students has revealed that they are largely unconvinced that functional programming is importantly different from imperative programming. After much time, I have diagnosed the problem to be the lack of an alternative to the Von Neumann model. I argue that including the ?-calculus and its resulting model, which is absent from the standard programming language texts, is essential for students to understand functional programming.