layout: series_index
title: “The ‘thinking functionally’ series”

seriesIndexId: “Thinking functionally”

This series of posts will introduce you to the fundamentals of functional programming
— what does it really mean to “program functionally”, and how this approach differs from object oriented or imperative programming.

• Thinking Functionally: Introduction. A look at the basics of functional programming.
• Mathematical functions. The impetus behind functional programming.
• Function Values and Simple Values. Binding not assignment.
• How types work with functions. Understanding the type notation.
• Currying. Breaking multi-parameter functions into smaller one-parameter functions.
• Partial application. Baking-in some of the parameters of a function.
• Function associativity and composition. Building new functions from existing ones.
• Defining functions. Lambdas and more.
• Function signatures. A function signature can give you some idea of what it does.
• Organizing functions. Nested functions and modules.
• Attaching functions to types. Creating methods the F# way.
• Worked example: A stack based calculator. Using combinators to build functionality.