Learning Functional Data Structures and Algorithms: Learn functional data structures and algorithms for your applications and bring their benefits to your work now
Moving from object-oriented programming to functional programming? This book will help you get started with functional programming.
Easy-to-understand explanations of practical topics will help you get started with functional data structures.
Illustrative diagrams to explain the algorithms in detail.
Get hands-on practice of Scala to get the most out of functional programming.
Description
Functional data structures have the power to improve the codebase of an application and improve efficiency. With the advent of functional programming and with powerful functional languages such as Scala, Clojure and Elixir becoming part of important enterprise applications, functional data structures have gained an important place in the developer toolkit. Immutability is a cornerstone of functional programming. Immutable and persistent data structures are thread safe by definition and hence very appealing for writing robust concurrent programs.
How do we express traditional algorithms in functional setting? Won’t we end up copying too much? Do we trade performance for versioned data structures?
This book attempts to answer these questions by looking at functional implementations of traditional algorithms.
It begins with a refresher and consolidation of what functional programming is all about. Next, you’ll get to know about Lists, the work horse data type for most functional languages. We show what structural sharing means and how it helps to make immutable data structures efficient and practical.
Scala is the primary implementation languages for most of the examples. At times, we also present Clojure snippets to illustrate the underlying fundamental theme. While writing code, we use ADTs (abstract data types). Stacks, Queues, Trees and Graphs are all familiar ADTs. You will see how these ADTs are implemented in a functional setting. We look at implementation techniques like amortization and lazy evaluation to ensure efficiency.
By the end of the book, you will be able to write efficient functional data structures and algorithms for your applications.
Who is this book for?
This book is for those who have some experience in functional programming languages. The data structures in this book are primarily written in Scala, however implementing the algorithms in other functional languages should be straight forward.
What you will learn
Learn to think in the functional paradigm
Understand common data structures and the associated algorithms, as well as the context in which they are commonly used
Take a look at the runtime and space complexities with the O notation
See how ADTs are implemented in a functional setting
Explore the basic theme of immutability and persistent data structures
Find out how the internal algorithms are redesigned to exploit structural sharing, so that the persistent data structures perform well, avoiding needless copying.
Get to know functional features like lazy evaluation and recursion used to implement efficient algorithms
This is not a perfect book, but it's really good for being a Packt book. It's a nicer read than all other functional programming books I have. I've never written this about a book before - but reading this one actually makes me happy. It's simply a fun read! Not full of jokes, but fun in the way that every page makes me really curious about what's in the next page. And every chapter makes me curious about what's in the next chapter. I usually only review bad books, to warn others, but I think this one deserves a good review because it stands out so strongly among the competition when it comes to Packt books. Another reviewer said that it's more like a Manning book, but I disagree. I like this one more than I like the Manning books I've read. There are a few errors in the book (not many) and at some points the explanations could be better / clearer. But if you stop and think a bit you will probably manage fine without a perfect explanation. Everything is in there to be able to figure the missing parts out yourself (contrary to the Functional Programming in Scala book from Manning, to take an example of a book with way too many missing explanations).
Amazon Verified review
mloves2travelJul 09, 2017
5
This is by far the best Packt publishing book I've ever read. This is comparable to the quality of a Manning Press book. I highly recommend this book and it's especially useful if you are preparing for technical interviews.
Atul S. Khot is a self-taught programmer and has written software programmes in C and C++. Having extensively programmed in Java and dabbled in multiple languages, these days, he is increasingly getting hooked on Scala, Clojure, and Erlang. Atul is a frequent speaker at software conferences and a past Dr. Dobb's product award judge. He was the author of Scala Functional Programming Patterns and Learning Functional Data Structures and Algorithms, published by Packt Publishing.
Charit Mishra is an ICS/SCADA security professional. He works as a security architect for critical infrastructure industry (oil and gas, energy and utility, transport, telecom, and so on) and holds extensive experience in security standards, framework, and technologies, with real hands-on experience in security. He has obtained leading industry certifications, such as OSCP, CEH, CompTIA Security+, and CCNA R&S. Also, he holds a master's degree in computer science. He regularly delivers professional trainings on critical infrastructure security internationally.
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