To write good code has no rules set in stone: it’s a mix of art and intuition and a lot of learning. And learning calls for abstractions, for giving names to all the things. Design patterns have given a language and a meaning to many techniques that make our code cleaner, more reusable, and last but not least, more comprehensible.
In the realm of functional programming, abstractions and idioms can seem not only intimidating but maybe even unnecessary, so often in terms of lambda calculus or category theory. Why does a function need to be called a morphism? Why is folding over a list really just a catamorphism? Why do we so often talk about monads when chaining functions? And most importantly: do all these things even help you write better code?
The answer is yes, and if you don’t believe it, this talk is for you.