An intro to ELM and functional programming

Working with functional programming languages can be a very different experience compared to what we're used to day by day, namely the object-centric way of writing code. But you don't have to switch to Haskell or Lisp to work with functional programming concepts.

Functional programming is getting a lot of attention from the JavaScript community later, so let's meet up and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of working in a functional mindset. We will try to discuss in an open format about the implications of embracing concepts from classic functional programming into pure JavaScript.

We will most likely tackle concepts like pure functions, immutability, function breakdown and composition, partial application and currying, so it might be a good idea to go over these concepts HERE (https://medium.com/@cscalfani/so-you-want-to-be-a-functional-programmer-part-1-1f15e387e536#.u0ghafwib) before joining our discussion so that you can actively get involved and receive as much information as you need about them

Since some of our colleagues from the community started playing around with Elm (http://elm-lang.org/), so we will have a look at some very basic code examples written directly with Elm, to see a nice comparison between raw JavaScript and understand how and why a pure functional language like Elm is superior to it. We will talk about the Elm ecosystem, the ideas that sprung the language itself and what we think the future will bring in this direction.

Looking forward to meeting you all and having a great time chatting. Remember this will be mostly an open talk, so everyone's participation is more than encouraged!