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This is not the way to do FP in Java though. Even before lambdas were introduced, you could do FP in Java. This is actually the whole point of GoF design patterns such as Interpreter and Visitor, which together with Composite are the way to write recursive data definitions (and functions that operate on them) in Java (or C++). The whole idea of "Little Languages" is FP, representing operations as data, as an AST. How to do FP in Java is very well explained in the MIT OCW course 6.005 "Elements of Software Construction", 2008 [1], in particular in lectures 10, 11, 13, 14 & 15. Remember that you can create closures with inner classes. As for the fact that in Java you could have state inside, say, a Visitor, the program can still be FP, if you know what you are doing. The point is that when doing FP in a language like Java, you are adopting a definitional approach to FP, which is totally legit: any operation is FP if it is deterministic and has no visible side-effects (a corollary is that then it wouldn't have any observable state of its own, it would be reactive). This is sort of a "if it walks like a duck ..." approach to FP. In fact, this is exactly what is going on when you are doing reactive programming in a non FP language like Javascript, where there are no restrictions to doing destructive assignment anywhere. This doesn't stop you from doing reactive programming, as long as you follow certain guidelines (because the language won't stop you from infringing them and having state). How is this possible? The reason is that the OO computation model subsumes FP: anything you can express in an FP language, you can express in an OO language, and then some (although not as naturally, there is more plumbing in the way). The reverse is not true, and this is a good thing, it is exactly what allows FP to have all those desirable properties. [1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-compu... |