Are you ready for functional programming - JavaScript vs. Scala

Functional programming is becoming increasingly popular. Even though the concept dates back to the beginning of computer sciences, it is only recently that we are hearing about its benefits for creating non-trivial distributed systems. It is being predicted that in the next few years, the way we code will change in radical ways. The OO principles will slowly be abandoned and we will focus more on functional, reactive programming. Organizations like Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Microsoft and many more have already begun a transition toward functional programming. High level languages like Haskell, Erlang and Clojure are being used for the purpose of their services. The most recent one is Scala – a pure object oriented, functional programming language. Because of its “best of both worlds” approach, Scala is gaining more and more popularity, and is the second most used language in the Java ecosystem. In the midst of this trend, we have practically forgotten that one of the most important programming language of all time is also functional. Yes, we are talking about JavaScript. Furthermore, we have forgotten that this "small" audience can also benefit from functional programming. In the following presentation we will compare and contrast Scala and JavaScript in some practical examples of functional programming. Our aim is to show that JavaScript is a powerful functional language (1) and by using it, functional programming can become a great weapon in your arsenal (2).