Why FP? and The Aeson Parser

We're still at Suncorp, but we'll be at a different room than usual since the room that we are normally in is booked. It is still on level 28 though so see you in the usual foyer!

This month we have Fraser's talk that he was unable to present last month and a talk from Ben that should help inspire FP initiates start their FP journey. :)

Why FP? By Ben Kolera

Everyone in this group has some idea of what FP is, but when you are first dipping your toes into the FP ocean it is difficult to see concrete examples of how it can help you.

Ben will introduce the core ideals and building blocks of FP. He'll also try to draw some overlaps with FP and traditional programming languages but ultimately try to show that fully featured FP languages are much better suited to the task.

The talk will explore the usefulness of FP some concrete examples from code he has written in his day job as a web/api developer. The examples will be shown at a very high level (just enough to get why they are awesome) while ignoring a lot of the underlaying details that require prior experience or heavy explanation to navigate.

The talk is aimed at beginners who need some extra orientation and/or inspiration before jumping in and learning FP.

The Aeson JSON Parser by Fraser Tweedale

JSON is everywhere. Developers often need to work with JSON serialisations of nonstandard data types, and aeson makes it fast and easy to do this in Haskell.

Fraser will introduce aeson and demonstrate basic use before recounting his experiences using aeson in a web crypto library. The talk will wrap with an overview of aeson's advanced features and a comparison with some other JSON libraries.

A basic understanding of types and typeclasses in Haskell or similar languages is assumed.

Fraser drank the FP Flavor Aid. His day job is Ruby and Javascript but functional code keeps creeping in and he considers this a Good Thing.