Talk: 16:35-17:20 (English)

The Essence of Programming

Referential transparency is a property that lets us better understand computer programs, because it allows us to safely replace expressions with their values without changing the programs behavior in other places. To achieve referential transparency, we have to program using pure functions and function composition as primary tools.

Seen abstractly, the process of composing and decomposing of pure functions closely relate to the essential principle of problem: “To solve a large problem, split it up into subproblems and solve these recursively, then combine the solutions.” What implications does this correlation have on functional programs?

In this talk, I argue why function composition is the essence of programming, and how it manifests itself through some abstractions we know from the functional world.

Ludvig Sundström

@l5und

Ludvig is a consultant with INNOQ in Cologne, Germany. Ever since he was introduced to functional programming at university, his main interest has been exploring ideas from the functional world, both in theory and in practice. Ludvig enjoys programming in and talking about languages like Haskell, Clojure, Scala, and Erlang.

Slides
sundstroem.pdf
Video
https://media.ccc.de/v/bob2020-97-the_essence_of_programming