> You might have heard people say that functional programming is more academic, and real engineering is done in imperative style.
Real Engineering is done in imperative style. There are very very few projects done in pure functional style. Sure it can be possible, there are always a few FP projects sprinkled around eg Spark has done great. But FP really is a niche specialty. It makes me think it just isn't the right tool for the job.
From my experience, real engineering is done in a multi-paradigm style. Some functional, some oo, some imperative, etc. As a general rule, functional style is easier to reason about (and test) for smaller pieces of code (ie, pure functions, function composition, etc) but can be harder to reason about for the larger code base. As such, it's very common to see as many functions as possible be done in a functional style.. but the overall system include lots of non-fuctional things.
Indeed, I'd say that a lot of the software development I do isn't Real Engineering. And that's fine! I have a lot of respect for the people who make 50-story skyscrapers. But a lot of the time what people need is a modest one-story apartment, a redone kitchen, a backyard doghouse. Or a movie set that just looks like an apartment.
Not to mention that anything that goes through a spreadsheet relies on functional programming.
> I’m going to show you that real engineering is functional, and I’m going to illustrate it using a computer game that is designed by engineers for engineers.