FP for the OO Developer & Functional Data Structures

We have something for everyone this month! For beginners we have an intro to FP for OO devs looking to try out the waters. We will then have a technical discussion on functional data structures.

6:00 - 6:30pm Introductions and dinner

We'll use this time to get to know each other. Dinner (180 Tacos!!) will be provided. Please RSVP so we can arrange the for the dinner.

Dinner is sponsored by FarBetter

http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/e/5/d/0/event_366478832.jpeg

FarBetter lets you plan and book business travel in one minute. Currently in stealth mode, FarBetter will launch in late Summer 2014.

Functional Programming for the OO Developer by Matthew Smith

Functional Programming is experiencing a renaissance over the past several years. Part of the renewed interests stems from an increased interest in JavaScript which hides a functional language (who knew?). Another driver is the increased reliance on parallel computing as
noted in this 2007 quote (http://ditrans.blogspot.com/2007/10/functional-programming-renaissance.html):

"... for developers there are no more free lunches when it comes to the performance of their applications. The automatic performance gains that came with processor upgrades are a thing of the past since processor speed will remain largely static. Therefore, in order to make our applications scream, we will have to consciously work at making them take advantage of the multiple computing cores available. However, parallel computing is an area of computer science that many
programmers have no experience in."

Fortunately, there is no reason that we can make our OO programs more functional, enabling them to more easily take advantage of these platform.

The presentation will discuss 3 principles of functional programming: immutable data, pure functions and lambdas. Each principle can be applied to OO design and implementation to achieve the benefits of FP without leaving the comfort of the OO world.

About Matthew Smith

Matthew Smith is a software engineer, author and public speaker. With a degree in Computer Science, he has been the lead software engineer on the Intermountain Healthcare patient portal for over 8 years with 3 years experience integrating the Liferay Platform with enterprise services to provide a unified patient experience. Matthew has been recognized at JavaOne for contributing to the JVM. He is happily married and has three kids.

Functional Data Structures by Levi Pearson

This presentation will cover the basics of functional data structures -- what they're good for, persistent vs. ephemeral structures and how amortized analysis works. We'll do all this and walk-through several interesting examples of these data structures.

About Levi Pearson

Levi is a software engineer for the Corporate Technology Group of Harman International, where he works primarily on network protocols and embedded systems. He has been a fan of functional programming since learning Scheme in the late 90s and enjoys digging into the details of programming languages of all sorts.