Functional programming is a programming paradigm that emphasizes the use of functions to perform computations. In a functional programming language, functions are treated as first-class citizens, meaning they can be passed around like any other value, such as an integer or a string.
Functional programming languages typically encourage the use of immutable data structures, which do not change once they are created. This can help make programs easier to reason about and debug, as changes to data are kept to a minimum.
Functional programming also places a strong emphasis on higher-order functions, which are functions that take other functions as arguments, or return functions as their result. Higher-order functions can be used to create powerful abstractions and can make code more expressive and concise.
Some popular functional programming languages include Haskell, Lisp, and Scala. However, many programming languages, including Python, JavaScript, and Ruby, support functional programming features and can be used in a functional style.
Functional programming is particularly well-suited for data processing and analysis, as many data operations can be expressed as a series of transformations on a dataset. Dask, for example, uses a functional programming approach to process large datasets, allowing users to compose operations on data using higher-order functions like map, filter, and reduce.