One of the greatest ironies of technical developments is the phenomenon of the “known yet unknown.” In software development, a trend may dramatically impact in a matter of days. Why are we discussing this? Do you know what “Functional Programming” refers to? You might say it’s trendy these days. Though functional programming has been around for 60 years, it is still mostly obscure in the programming community. Things are shifting, and at the moment, every developer is eager to pick it up, utilize it, and exploit it to make cutting-edge, secure, and helpful products in a shorter amount of time.

Let’s continue our introduction to functional programming. This article will also discuss the six most widely used functional programming languages by developers throughout the world.

What Is a Functional Programming Language?

Functional programming is a programming paradigm. A paradigm in computer science is a method, a model, or a pattern for solving a certain problem.

To expand on this idea, we might say that functional programming is the practice of building programs entirely out of pure functions. Function definitions are expressed as trees of expressions that map one set of values to another, making this a declarative programming paradigm. It contrasts the imperative paradigm, in which a new set of statements can alter the program’s current state as it proceeds.

What Is Functional Programming?

Simply said, functions are groups of instructions that work together to produce a specified result. More weight is given to pure functions in this case since they are not permitted to interact with any external devices and always provide the same output when given the same input.

Pure functions are not permitted to modify their state, in contrast to OOP, where every method can affect the state of the objects. Since several functions share no common state, pure functions have also been shown to be the most conducive to concurrency.

Data analysis and machine learning benefit greatly from functional programming. Powerful features like no nulls, higher-order functions, no exceptions for error handling, immutable data structures, pattern matching, and function composition operators have attracted the attention of programmers.

Functional programming’s benefits:

Here are some of functional programming’s benefits that programmers find appealing.

• Shorter code
• Simple debugging
• Modular
• Parallel programming
• increased maintainability
• Readability of code

Numerous businesses now employ one of the many functional programming languages available. Many additional programming languages also include or enable functional programming. It is widely utilized in various fields, including the web, statistics, financial analysis, machine learning, etc.

 

Functional Programming Languages: Which Are the Best Functional Programming Languages to Learn?

We’ve compiled a list of the most widely used functional programming languages and those that allow for functional programming or have both functional and object-oriented programming features.

Elixir:

The programming language with the most users is Elixir. The BEAM virtual computer supports this functionality, general-purpose, concurrent programming language. Its popularity stems from its aptitude for developing low-latency, fault-tolerant, and distributed systems.

Elixir is a high-concurrency, low-latency programming language developed on top of Erlang and borrows features from Erlang, Ruby, and Clojure. Globally popular services like Discord, PagerDuty, Pinterest, Bleacher Report, Inverse, The Outline, and many more use it to provide their services to millions of users at once. José Valim developed it to produce a language suitable for developing large-scale websites and applications.

Large amounts of data can be processed quickly and efficiently using it. The fields of telecommunications, electronic commerce, and banking make extensive use of Elixir. It’s a language that gets things done. The Phoenix framework was created in Elixir and is well-known for its high performance.

Due to its foundation in Erlang, it excels where dependability and concurrency are concerned. High-quality libraries, forums, and experts are all part of the Elixir ecosystem, which has been developed with the help of the community and the core Elixir team.

Try it out if you want to learn functional programming.

Clojure:

The Java programming language Clojure is widely used because it is a dynamic and functional variant of the Lisp language. Developers in Clojure may use its immutable and persistent data structures and its support for explicit identification and state management. Because of this, programmers now have a significant edge when trying to make concurrent and speedy software.

Clojure is a functional programming language developed by Rich Hickey as an updated version of Lisp. It has a macro system and a read-eval-print loop and treats functions as first-class objects. Lazy sequences, recursion, a reactive agent system, and higher-order functions are also supported. Although Java is Clojure’s principal platform, many more target implementations are available.

Many well-known organizations utilize it, including Walmart, Chartbeat, Netflix, Puppet, Circle CI, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Cisco, Boeing, ThoughtWorks, Atlassian, Room Key, Pisano, GO-JEK, Freshcode, LendUp, and many more.

Scala:

Scala is not functional, although it does support both functional and object-oriented programming. Scala has been considered because it is a concise, high-level language that mixes object-oriented programming and functional programming.

It is a multi-paradigm, contemporary programming language that operates on top of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). It combines aspects of both functional and object-oriented languages. Scala is statically typed, flexible, and compatible with the Java ecosystem.

Lazy evaluation, higher-order types, immutability, pattern matching, and a type system that allows algebraic data types, raw strings, and optional arguments are some of the functional-level features it supports from Scheme, Standard ML, and Haskell. Foursquare, the New York Times, Airbnb, SoundCloud, Verizon, Morgan Stanley, Firebase, LinkedIn, Twitter, MeetUp, Coursera, Apple, Walmart, Databricks, and many others utilize it.

Scala has been called many different things, including the most popular programming language, an alternative to the languages available on the JVM, and the most popular programming language built on the JVM.

 

Python:

There is no need to introduce Python. While it is not a functional language, it does allow for functional, declarative code. Functional programming is encouraged by the language’s structure, which includes support for functions, generating expressions, list comprehensions, sets, and dictionaries. Haskell and Standard ML are major influences.

Anything is built on the principle that “there should be one, and preferably only one, obvious method to accomplish it.” It is a common programming language for many different types of software. The Python community is huge, one of the language’s main selling points. Many parts of the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) software ecosystem, as well as the scientific computing and information security (IS) sectors, are developed in Python.

Businesses big and small, from Amazon to Instagram to NASA to Google to Yahoo to Wikipedia to Reddit to ITA to Spotify, all use Python.

 

Kotlin:

Kotlin is a general-purpose, cross-platform, statically typed language that may also be used for functional programming. As it provides first-class support for things like function types and lambdas, higher-order functions, and many more, it is an excellent option for experimenting with functional programming.

In addition to being brief and quicker, it is also type-safe. Since Kotlin is fully compatible with Java, it is much simpler to learn and implement. Kotlin is supported as a first-class language on the Android platform, and it is utilized for server-side, client-side, web app, desktop app, and native development. Many businesses rely on Square, Pinterest, Basecamp, Corda, and many more.

Kotlin has a large and active community that provides resources like forums, events, and other material.

 

JavaScript:

Although it is more commonly associated with its scripting capabilities, JavaScript may also be used to provide functional features.

JS operates on a high level, is multi-paradigm, and is frequently compiled at runtime. Dynamic typing, first-class functions, and object orientation based on prototypes are all supported. Like Cascading Style Sheets and HyperText Markup Language, JavaScript is essential to the operation of the World Wide Web. This is because it is a multi-paradigm language, meaning that it can be used for both functional and imperative programming.

It’s quite similar to Scheme in many ways. The usage of JavaScript has become ubiquitous, and it can be found in virtually every site and app today.