Functional programming and Ruby

[ajmcmiddlin]

I work at the Queensland Functional Programming Lab (QFPL) in Fortitude Valley, and am keen to give a talk on functional programming (FP) in Ruby. I'd like to share my experience applying FP principles to Ruby, the problems and limitations you face, as well as where you can go to learn more.

I'd be covering something along the lines of:

• What is functional programming
• Why I believe the properties of functional programming align with desirable properties
  of software
• Which of these techniques can be applied in Ruby - including examples
• The issues/limits/pitfalls of applying these techniques
• Which techniques can't be applied and why
• Where you can go to learn more

For context, I used to write a fair bit of Ruby for my day job, and was taught by a group
of functional programmers. I have applied these techniques and made these mistakes
on real projects, so I can talk from experience. My goal is to share what worked and improved
the software I used to work on, as well as hopefully spark some interest in FP, let people
know that our lab exists, and promote our functional programming courses (free to the public).

Regarding scheduling, I should be able to give the talk from January if I'm given enough (a couple of week's) notice.

[ridget]

@ajmccluskey Thanks for volunteering, our next meetup is Jan 23rd. Would you be ok to give this then? Also I've labelled this as an intermediate talk, but feel free to let me know if that's incorrect.

[ajmcmiddlin]

@ridget I can do Jan 23. Intermediate sounds fair, but I doubt my ability to judge that. I'll aim for some beginner content too, so hopefully everyone can walk away with something :).

[jamiecook]

Be careful @ridget, I'm pretty sure it's a trap!

[ajmcmiddlin]

@jamiecook is partly responsible for me knowing these things, so I suspect the trap he's referring to is that you might end up spending your evenings learning Haskell and want to use it at work :p.

[ajmcmiddlin]

@ridget Just checking I'm still on to talk 2018-01-23. If so, how long is my slot?

[ridget]

@ajmccluskey would love to have you! About 20-30 minutes for the slot.

[ajmcmiddlin]

@ridget Great, I'll see you all then :)