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Explore the fundamental concepts and defining characteristics of functional programming in this 46-minute conference talk from Lambda Days 2025. Learn to identify what makes a programming language "functional" and understand the key features that distinguish functional programming style from other paradigms. Discover how to visually recognize functional code patterns and develop intuition for generalizing these concepts across different programming contexts. Examine topics ranging from higher-order functions to capturing effects as values, while exploring various flavors of functional programming that explain why definitions of FP can vary significantly. Evaluate which functional programming features provide the most practical value and assess how mainstream programming languages measure in terms of their "functionalness." Gain clarity on answering the fundamental question of what functional programming truly is and when a language can be considered functional.
