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Functional Python

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What is Functional Programming?

1:57 with Kenneth Love

Functional programming is often a scary concept to a lot of programmers. Let's figure out exactly what we mean by it before we start learning.

Functional programming is a popular approach in a lot of languages and is even the main approach in some. If you find you like functional programming, check out the languages Haskell and Scala.

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    [MUSIC] 0:00
    Hi, I'm Kenneth, the Treehouse Python teacher, and I have a secret to confess. 0:04
    Some developers program because it makes our other jobs easier. 0:10
    Or, maybe we do it because it's a good way to make money. 0:13
    Or, it scratches a problem solving itch. 0:15
    But, for a lot of us, 0:18
    myself definitely included, we do it because it makes us feel really cool. 0:19
    I mean, we type a few words, and we get a neat website or application that does so 0:23
    much for us. 0:27
    Honestly, this magic is a big part of what I like about functional programming. 0:29
    Functional programming, 0:33
    sometimes abbreviated as FP, is one of a few major approaches to programming. 0:34
    You've probably used two of the others already. 0:38
    Procedural programming is where most of start out. 0:41
    Your program just works its way from top to bottom evaluating each line. 0:44
    Maybe there are some functions, but they're used for repetitious work. 0:48
    And you've probably come across object-oriented programming 0:51
    where concepts are broken up into objects, and then those objects have attributes and 0:54
    methods that do the work. 0:57
    Both of these approaches are useful in their own ways, and we've done, 1:00
    and will continue to do, both of them here on Treehouse. 1:03
    Functional programming though, 1:06
    is a slightly different approach to programming. 1:07
    We're gonna talk more about the rules of functional programming in the next video. 1:10
    But I want you to understand, despite what you might see in more fanatical blogs or 1:13
    guides on the Internet, or in other languages. 1:17
    In Python, functional programming is just another set of 1:20
    tools to keep in your pocket for problem solving. 1:22
    Just to set some expectations, 1:25
    this course is going to be a bit more theory heavy than other courses. 1:27
    We'll still be writing plenty of code, but we have to establish some ground rules and 1:30
    approaches up front so that we can get the best benefit from our code. 1:34
    Also, many of our examples will be more about here's a useful approach 1:39
    then us working together one step at a time to solve a final problem. 1:42
    I found over the years that functional programming usually isn't an end 1:47
    in and of itself. 1:50
    It's just another superpower to use when you need to do a lot of amazing work with 1:51
    just a bit of code. 1:55

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