Functional Python Programming

Chapter 2. Introducing Some Functional Features

Most of the features of functional programming are already first-class parts of Python. Our goal in writing functional Python is to shift our focus away from imperative (procedural or object-oriented) techniques to the maximum extent possible.

We'll look at each of the following functional programming topics:

• First-class and higher-order functions, which are also known as pure functions.
• Immutable Data.
• Strict and non-strict evaluation. We can also call this eager vs. lazy evaluation.
• Recursion instead of an explicit loop state.
• Functional type systems.

This should reiterate some concepts from the first chapter. Firstly, that purely functional programming avoids the complexities of explicit state maintained ...