Backend developers must be jacks of all trades and masters including the functional programming of all in 2022.

The requirement for backend developers to understand front-end capabilities will only rise – and vice versa for front-end developers.

With that said, here is the reasons backend developers are adopting functional programming in 2022.

Increased developer output: Functional programming is more than a different syntax. A functional programmer, in essence, thinks more and writes less.

Functional programming allows developers to write and comprehend code more effectively, making it easier to create apps and be more productive than ever before.

Les code is used. I’m not suggesting that apps created by functional programmers don’t have code.

But they utilize programming in a very different way.

Functional programmers are always considering methods to avoid writing code.

Fewer bugs. Applications with functional programming have fewer defects overall.
Why? It is because a functional program has fewer lines of code.

Data-driven programming, as opposed to logic

Both logic and the judgments it generates are susceptible to errors.

Because of this, functional programming strongly emphasizes leveraging data to create applications (instead of using logic).

What is functional programming? (Pros and cons)

Functional programming is a way of writing code that avoids stateful variables, a big part of object-oriented programming in imperative languages. It favors an expression-oriented style and recursion over loops. The pros of this type of programming are that it is swift, parallelizable, and more declarative, while the cons are that it is more difficult to debug the code in this language.

The pros:

Functional programming is a different paradigm from the object-oriented programming that we typically use in daily programming. In functional programming, programmers use only functions – no classes, objects, or mutable data. The advantages of this are:

Functions are more lightweight than classes and objects, hence more efficient and faster. Programs written in functional style can be more easily parallelized since there’s less overhead.
The downsides to it are:

It’s challenging to maintain because programs written in functional style have less modularity and make it harder to debug errors which can sometimes be hard to find the cause of the error. It also makes it difficult for developers to use standard tools like profiling and debuggers.

Comparison of functional programming with conventional programming? (enlist the key differences)

Functional programming is a type of programming in which mathematical functions calculate the output value without changing values in the input.

In conventional programming, programmers manipulate data to change the program’s output.

This kind of programs are more concise, predictable, and less prone to errors than conventional programs.

This programs are more challenging to develop than conventional programs due to their complexities.

Code that implements functional programming can be easier to read and understand because it describes what needs to be done instead of how it needs to be done.

The way conventional programming code is written, only one instruction will be executed at any given time, whereas, with Functional Programming, multiple instructions can run simultaneously.

Fast becomes slow when the number of inputs increases with Functional Programming and vice versa for Conventional Programming.

What libraries does it have? Which are the best five languages for?

Several libraries support programming as we said before; some offer essential functions while others provide comprehensive API tools.

The first library is Prelude, which provides a set of utility functions and types considered safe and valuable for its users. It contains:

  • Prelude: the core library,
  • Data: data structures and algorithms
  • Text: text manipulation.

The second library is called Data.List which provides a comprehensive set of list functions.

The third library is called Control.Monad provides a set of abstractions for working with monads.
Another library is called a vector, which facilitates functional programming. It provides:

  • Vector: data structures like lists and arrays,
  • Streams: list-like data structures that provide extra operations
  • Random: random number generation

A Library called deepseq provides support for evaluating non-deterministic computations and the consumption of infinite structures.

A few others are:

Control.Category: high-level abstractions for working with arrows and applicative functors.

Control.Monad.Instances: generalizations for some standard classes and instances for various monads.

Control.Applicative: provides a set of tools for defining and using applicatives.

Control.Concurrent: which provides a set of concurrent primitives.

If you want to work with the functional programming language, it’s best if you learn one that’s already in use. For example, Racket, Scala, and Erlang are all popular.

There are plenty of languages out there that are designed for use this type of programming. What makes them stand out, and which ones should you learn?

To answer this question, one must first define what functional programming is. It uses pure functions with no side effects in the simplest terms possible. As such, it is a great way to reduce the number of bugs in a codebase and increase performance. However, to succeed with this programming, one needs a good understanding of the paradigm and knowledge of data structures and algorithms.

There are plenty of languages that we can use to write functional programs, but some stand out more than others because they were explicitly designed for FP:

  • Haskell (1990)
  • Elm (2012)
  • Erlang (1986)
  • Clojure (2007)
  • Scala (2004)

Why it gained so much popularity in the last few years?

Well, there are a few reasons for this.

First, this type of programming is an excellent tool for solving real-world problems, not just academic exercises. For example, we can use it to build high-performance web servers, which is why many companies such as Twitter use Scala to build their web servers.

Second, the popularity of JavaScript has allowed this programming techniques to enter the realm of mainstream programming.

Functional programming is on the rise due to the benefits it provides, namely scalability and maintainability.

¿Where do programmers are?

They are drawn to programming languages that provide them with more abstraction in coding. Furthermore this programming offers more abstraction than object-oriented languages, which is why this type of programming has gained so much popularity in recent years.

Programmers have found that functional languages are better suited for solving problems because they are less prone to errors and produce fewer bugs than other languages.

Another reason for the growing popularity of functional programming might be the availability of powerful libraries like React and Redux, which allow developers to build complex web applications with minimal code. Lastly, there’s been an increasing understanding of the benefits of using a functional style over an imperative one, including more straightforward parallelization and error handling.

According to one research, programs written in functional programming are easier to debug than those written in other languages.

It is also said that this type of programming is simple to learn for novice programmers in terms of code clarity.

Another intriguing aspect of functional programming’s popularity is how it forces programmers to reconsider their current practices and devise a better solution for how they will approach them.

In conclusion, there are numerous reasons why more people are choosing this type of coding language these days.

We invite you to check out our blog about Problem Solving here.