Gain insights into functional programming with OCaml and Haskell, explore lambda calculus, abstractions, and dataflows, and learn to apply these concepts to real-world scenarios, contrasting with Java.

ocaml_utop_haskell.tar.gz

OCaml

Functional programming is a paradigm that builds complete applications by breaking down programs into constituent functions that empowers developers to build fast, bug-resistant applications.

You’ll be introduced to functional programming with illustrative examples contrasting the more widely used imperative programming paradigm. You’ll review lambda calculus as an introduction to expressions, the building blocks of functional programs. You’ll continue with abstractions and complex data types before exploring common computation patterns. Next, you’ll learn how dataflows create whole programs out of existing functions. Finally, you’ll finish by applying your functional programming knowledge to various real-world scenarios. At each step, you’ll learn OCaml and Haskell, while contrasting imperative programming with Java.

By the end of this course, you’ll be prepared to use functional programming in your daily work and have the framework to know when to use either imperative or functional paradigms.

Mastering Functional Programming with OCaml and Haskell

# Syntax vs. semantics

When studying languages in general and programming languages in particular, it is worth learning to differentiate between syntax and semantics. The syntax of a language specifies which character combinations are valid and which aren’t. This lesson focuses on **semantics**, which is concerned with the meaning of those character combinations.

Consider, for instance, the expression `12 + 34`.
What we enter is nothing more than a string—a character combination— consisting of characters `1`, `2`, `3`, `4`, empty space, `+`, and so on.
The OCaml parser recognizes this input, and creates an abstract syntax tree to represent the expression. Until this point, it’s been all about syntax.

Now, an interesting question is, what about `46`, the result of adding `12` and `34`? This is the semantics of the string, `12 + 34`. 

The following diagram visualizes this distinction between syntax and semantics.

Understand the difference between syntax and semantics of expressions as well as how expression evaluation works.

Introduction

Expressions: Building Blocks of Functional Programs

Building Abstractions with Functions

Compound Data Types

Common Computation Patterns

Dataflow Programming with Functions

Applying Functional Programming to Various Domains

Conclusion

Appendix

Values of Expressions

Syntax vs. semantics