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A summary of the functional programming features of Erlang and the consequences.

guide/english/erlang/functional-language/index.md

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+---
+title: Functional Language
+---
+
+## Functional Language
+
+The Erlang language features 'concurrency'.
+The part of the language not concerned with 'concurrency' is known as the 'sequential subset'.
+This subset is a pragmatic functional programming language.
+
+#### More Information:
+<!-- Please add any articles you think might be helpful to read before writing the article -->
+
+  * [Wikipedia: Erlang Functional Programming Examples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(programming_language)#Functional_programming_examples)
+  * [Wikipedia: Functional Programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_programming)
+  * [Learn You Some Erlang: Types (or lack thereof)](https://learnyousomeerlang.com/types-or-lack-thereof)
+  * [Learn You Some Erlang: Module Declaration](https://learnyousomeerlang.com/modules#module-declaration)
+
+### Erlang as a Functional Programming Language
+
+The Erlang 'sequential subset' features:
+
+  * pattern matching
+  * a dynamic type system (strongly typed)
+  * referential transparency (immutable data)
+  * first class and higher order functions
+  * pure functions
+  * pure data structures
+  * recursion
+  * strict (aka eager) evaluation
+  * runtime garbage collection
+  * list comprehensions
+
+Erlang has no currying, a feature typical of languages that exhibit 'higher order functions'.
+
+Erlang is a 'pragmatic':  I/O and message passing have side-effects but there is no restriction on where these are used.
+So while pure functions are the norm, not all functions in Erlang are pure in the strict sense.
+
+### What this means in practice
+
+Most programs are written in 'imperative' or 'procedural' languages.
+
+Some 'imperative' languages have had 'functional' programming added so programmers
+may mix code that follows a functional style with code that follows an imperative style as and when they choose.
+This halfway house may make functional programming look 'easy'.
+
+Erlang does not support the 'imperative style' at all.
+Erlang code appears bewildering at first and the idea of writing Erlang code daunting.
+
+In Erlang you use recursion to express the idea of iteration:
+there is no 'for' or 'while' or 'do-while'.
+If you think of 'iterate' as what needs to be done and 'for-loop' as simply a way of doing it,
+you will able to learn how to use recursion instead.
+If you think of 'for-loop' as what needs to be done then you will struggle.
+
+In practice Erlang functions and programs tend to:
+
+  * use recursion to do loops
+  * use pattern matching and guards to do conditionals
+  * do not have state variables
+
+Erlang uses dynamic typing.
+This means you seldom have issues with the compiler telling you cannot do this with that number because it has the wrong number of bits.
+Erlang is strongly typed so this does not generally lead to lots of runtime errors.
+However, your experience may be different.
+
+In Erlang variables are immutable.
+This is an oxymoron.
+You do not assign values to variables in Erlang:
+you bind a value to a (variable) name and you can do that only once (per recursion).
+
+This affects the way functions are written.
+You cannot have 'state variables'.
+Instead, if you must have state,
+it is passed explicitly by using extra parameters to (usually recursive) functions.
+
+Lists are extremely important data structures in Erlang:
+they are analogous to arrays or vectors in other languages.
+However, lists cannot be indexed and are generally processed from head to tail.
+
+<!-- EOF --->