Well, I just started reading "Programming In Lua v.1" to get up to speed on the language I'll be using as my scripting language in my MUD server. I'm only on chapter 7 but I must say I am impressed with the flexibility and power of the language. Functions as first order variables, anonymous functions, proper tail recursion, interesting use of iterators, the extremely flexible table type.
While I could undoubtedly approach programming in Lua like programming in Blitzmax, or C++, or some other imperative language I'd be missing out on a lot of it's powerful features. Problem is, I'm new to functional programming and while so far I haven't had any real problems swallowing the PiL ("Programming In Lua" the book), I have a feeling that it's going to be harder to actually utilize the language to it's full power when it comes to actually coding. Understanding an example is one thing, knowing when and where to use the concepts of the example is another.
So, my question is, are there any good books/articles/websites on functional programming? I took a gander at Amazon and it seems like most of the functional programming books are quite theory heavy and are using Lisp or some dialect thereof. I guess I'm just looking for good beginner stuff to get me started. It's kind of like approaching OO from a procedural background I imagine - and hopefully it'll come to me as quickly as OO did. Maybe all I need is to just do do some functional programming, but in the meantime any and all beginner tutorials are appreciated.
While I could undoubtedly approach programming in Lua like programming in Blitzmax, or C++, or some other imperative language I'd be missing out on a lot of it's powerful features. Problem is, I'm new to functional programming and while so far I haven't had any real problems swallowing the PiL ("Programming In Lua" the book), I have a feeling that it's going to be harder to actually utilize the language to it's full power when it comes to actually coding. Understanding an example is one thing, knowing when and where to use the concepts of the example is another.
So, my question is, are there any good books/articles/websites on functional programming? I took a gander at Amazon and it seems like most of the functional programming books are quite theory heavy and are using Lisp or some dialect thereof. I guess I'm just looking for good beginner stuff to get me started. It's kind of like approaching OO from a procedural background I imagine - and hopefully it'll come to me as quickly as OO did. Maybe all I need is to just do do some functional programming, but in the meantime any and all beginner tutorials are appreciated.