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NFJS2025

What's the Deal with Functional Languages?

In the last year or so, there has been a growing buzz in the development
community around functional languages. Some of these languages, such as LISP,
have been around for decades while others are relatively new, like Scala. But
collectively, they have been garnering a lot of attention. This session aims
to cut through the buzz and give you an understanding of why there has been a
resurgence of interest in the these languages.

Topics covered include:

  1. What makes a language a functional language?
  2. Features and differentiators of several functional languages including Erlang, Haskell, LISP, Scala, and Schema.
  3. Where do these languages fit in the overall development landscape?
  4. What concepts of functional languages can be applied to for mainstream OO languages, such as Java?

Derek Lane

About Derek Lane

Derek Lane is the CTO at Semantra. He has worn various hats in his career including mentor, coach, architect, manager, developer, trainer, methodologist and all around cool guy. Derek is a contributor to various projects as author, presenter, committer, and technical reviewer, including his most recent role as co-author for the book, “EJB3 In Action”, published by Manning.

Derek is the Founder of both the Oklahoma City Java User Group (OKCJUG) and the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas MicroJava User Group; and has been active as a member, presenter, and mentor for over a decade at various technology user groups across the Midwest and Southern US.

Derek can on occasion be found utilizing his background in engineering, Virtual Reality and 3D graphics to think in four or more dimensions - some of which have yet to be independently verified. When not exploring the mind numbing edge of technology, he can be found listening to Bluegrass music and watching old Kung Fu movies - a dangerous combination from any point of view.

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