Hi guys, I was wondering how I should learn about ...

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[Archie]

Hi guys, I was wondering how I should learn about functional programming. Do you guys have any recommendations? A good book perhaps? Course? How do I start? Should I study Category Theory first? Thank you very much

[stojan]

https://g.co/kgs/k9RdYv or https://g.co/kgs/7YVUQf

Both were useful for me in different ways

[stojan]

The Functional programming in Scala course on Coursera was also nice for the basics, functions, recursion etc...

[stojan]

Category theory is not a requirement, you can learn that as you go, if you want to

[raulraja]

Also subscribe to the 47 Academy Calendar, there is tons of free content almost weekly in terms of talks and webinars. https://www.47deg.com/trainings/academy/

[raulraja]

Next one on Kotlin https://www.47deg.com/academy/2020-07-14-looking-into-immutable-data-with-optics-talk/

[raulraja]

by @simon.vergauwen

[Archie]

Thank you very much.. ❤️❤️

[Archie]

May i ask another question? When exactly would i ever need to use an Applicative? Ot seems to me that I could use Monad over applicative.

[stojan]

A Monad is also an Applicative, plus extras

Reasons to use Applicative are
You usually want to use the least powerful abstractions that do the job
Applicatives compose (always) Monads don't (this is a more complicated topic)

A good example is Validated, which is the same as Either but does have a Monad instance (only Applicative) so it can accumulate errors

[stojan]

https://carlo-hamalainen.net/2014/01/02/applicatives-compose-monads-do-not/