Tony Morris is a developer who has deployed functional programming techniques in industry for over 10 years. He's also a teacher and key player in Australia's increasingly vibrant functional programming community. Tony actively programs in Scala and Haskell so he possesses a well-rounded view of the functional world (from hybrid to pure functional).

Here, we talk about functional programming—when to go functional and why—and Tony addresses some of the problems that face developers who want or need to go functional but possess only an imperative way of thinking when it comes to designing and writing software. It's the functional way of thinking that most newcomers to functional programming find most difficult. Of course, there's no conversation about functional programming without talking about monads, so we talk about monadic design (and definition).



Thanks for joining us on C9 Tony!

Tony's YOW! speaker page

The YOW! Developer Conference offers outstanding opportunities to learn more about the latest practices, technologies, and methodologies for building innovative software solutions as well as the chance to meet and network with international software experts and other talented developers in Australia. Thanks to Dave Thomas and the event's excellent staff—Mary Catherine (MC), Lisa, Aino, Melissa, and others—for inviting me to this excellent pure developer event and thanks to all of the speakers for letting me take some of their time to record conversations for Channel 9. If you live in Australia, or aren't too far away, or just like to travel (who doesn't?), then you need to go to this yearly event. It's outstanding. There are many great developers down under. That's for sure. The speakers are exceptional—Dave and team set a high bar!