ALAlupis·Nov 22, 2024Submission
Professor Frisby's Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming
3 points · Open discussionMostlyAdequate
mostly-adequate-guide
JavaScript2015–2024
MostlyAdequate / mostly-adequate-guide
mostly-adequate-guide
Mostly adequate guide to FP (in javascript)
23Distinct people
27Mentions
4Explicit recommenders
23.8KGitHub stars
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Mostly adequate guide to FP (in javascript)
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This is always my favorite: Professor Frisby's Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming [1] [1] : https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
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HN mentions by year27 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-07-14 03:50:22 UTC to 2024-11-22 20:49:58 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
27 sources"Mostly adequate guide to FP (in javascript)". [Don't laugh].
That course takes you into coding from scratch "bind" and "return" for several use-cases, and do a bit of currying.
Very interesting small exercises.
https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide/rele...
In Ask HN: What resources do you recommend for learning Haskell?Mostly adequate guide to Functional Programming (in JavaScript)
3 points · Open discussionThis project might serve as inspiration: https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide
In Anyone use Git for writing projects?So, this is going to be an uphill battle for you. I suggest you actually learn Haskell first, and then you'll be able to apply its lessons to TypeScript.
Its tricky because these are patterns that are familiar in Haskell but are not really taught in other settings.
Additionally, to really learn these, you need to experiment with them. Use them. etc. That's pretty hard to do if the learning resources are mostly in haskell and you don't really understand it.
Alternatively, this might help: https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide
Also alternatively, what I would do is just go slowly through the fp-ts code. Look at it a piece at a time and slowly grow your understanding.
This may also help https://www.amazon.com/Domain-Modeling-Made-Functional-Domai...
In Ask HN: Hey Functional Programmers, how did you learn functional programmingThere are a good deal of resources explaining these concepts in non-Haskell languages. This one is quite good and in javascript: https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide
As far as functors this could be rephrased more comprehensibly to those unfamiliar with Haskell as "What is a Functor, really? Functor is an interface here are some definitions:"
(typescript)
interface ArrayFunctor<A, B> {
map: (f: ((a: A) -> B), arr: Array<A>) -> Array<B>
}
interface PromiseFunctor<A, B> {
map: (f: ((a: A) -> B), arr: Promise<A>) -> Promise<B>
}
interface ObservableFunctor<A, B> {
map: (f: ((a: A) -> B), arr: Observable<A>) -> Observable<B>
}
"definitions" is plural here because typescript doesn't support higher-kinded types or else it might look like this:
interface Functor<F, A, B> {
map: (f: ((a
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: A) -> B), arr: F<A>) -> F<B>
}
(note, there are ways around this used in the fp-ts library, see here: https://www.matechs.com/blog/encoding-hkts-in-ts4-1)
> I actually do understand some useful subset of what Monads are and I just don't know it
This is certainly the case if you have ever used flatMap on an array or chained Promises (or other async structures like futures in other langs).
This is always my favorite:
Professor Frisby's Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming [1]
[1] : https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide
In Ask HN: Book recommendations to learn functional programmingFor Biology, and especially for Molecular biology I'd go for:
- Albert's Molecular Biology of the cell - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0815344325/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... - It introduces basic Biochemistry, a lot of Genetics and Gene-regulation and Developmental biology. The book also touches other areas (but very vaguely) like Immunology... I think if you read this book you will be able to understand modern Molecular Biology papers.
- Biochem: Legninger's Principles of Biochemistry https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K0PYUYQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... - Our prof taught us from this, it has great visuals and covers a lot of areas.
- Developmental biology: Gilbert's - https://www.amazon.com/Developmental-Biology-Tenth-Scott-Gil... - it introduces more genetic regulation and development for all walks of life
- Human developmental biology: Bruce M. C
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arlson - Human Embryology and Developmental biology - https://www.amazon.com/Human-Embryology-Developmental-Biolog... - Again it's the choice of my prof, but I loved it, great images and visual explanations.
- Anatomy: I'd definitely go for anything by Netter -> https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Human-Anatomy-Netter-Science/dp...
- Cancer: Robert A. Weinberg - The biology of cancer - https://www.amazon.com/Biology-Cancer-2nd-Robert-Weinberg/dp...
- Plant biochem: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Plants - https://www.amazon.com/Biochemistry-Molecular-Biology-Plants... - A very good book with great illustrations.
For electronics and Embedded:
- Art of Electronics by Paul Horovitz - https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz-ebook/d... - I saw that others also suggested it, great book
- Paul Scherz - Practical Electronics for inventors - https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourt... - I was introduced to electronics via this book. Not really a textbook but it's I think it's a great book to get started, it covers almost the same topics as the Art of Electronics but not as deep and with better visual explanations.
- Embedded systems - Michael Barr - Programming Embedded Systems in C and C++ - I was introduced to embedded software development by this book, when I was working for an IoT company and only had experience with systems and web programming.
Programming (my cherry picked favourites):
- Hacking: The Art of Exploitation - I love this book. I've read it after I had a few years of professional programming experience with C#. It introduces programming via C, also every example program is disassembled with GDB. It gives the reader an intuition of how C code compiled and what happens on the register level.
- C in a Nutshell: The Definitive Reference - Usually when you search for good books to learn C from, you get titles like The C programming language, Deep C Secret. But I think C in a Nutshell beats all other C books. (Especially when you read it together with C related chapters from The Art of Exploitation).
- Functional Programming in Scala - https://www.manning.com/books/functional-programming-in-scal... - I saw that other people suggested SICP, and I agree with that, it does a great job introducing to some parts of functional programming. But FPIS also introduces a strictly typed aspect of FP, functional parallelism, functional designs patterns... It's a great book.
- Concurrency in Go: Tools and Techniques for Developers - https://www.amazon.com/Concurrency-Go-Tools-Techniques-Devel... - I love the Go language and how it handles concurrency. This book does a great job of describing how the go runtime works, and does a great job explaining concurrency in general. Also there are a lot of good design patters in it.
- Professor Frisby's Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming - https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide - It's not a textbook. This is the book that introduced me to FP. I love it, great book.
- Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective - https://www.amazon.com/dp/9332573905/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... - This was the suggested textbook for https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse351/ that was also available on Coursera. Great book.
I enjoyed reading Professor Frisby's Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming, 146 pages.
https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide
In Ask HN: Best books under 200 pages for developers?"Mostly adequate guide to FP (in javascript)"
I really enjoyed this one.
https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide
In Ask HN: Fun Tech Book Recommendations?Dr. Boolean's Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming
2 points · Open discussionMostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming in JavaScript
3 points · Open discussionhttps://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide is also didactic but goes into more details, and is not Haskell-specific (IIRC functors, map and so forth are all defined in JavaScript)
In Advice for Haskell beginners (2017)Here’s some I’ve used. Mostly just beginner stuff though.
Professor Frisby’s mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming by Brian Lunsdorf is great[1]. A pretty solid book meant for beginners that introduces functional programming in a simple manner without over burdening you with all the math. It uses JavaScript, and helps you create a lot of the functional programming patterns yourself.
Learn You a Haskell For Great Good [2]. This book is pretty light hearted and an entertaining read. It’s for beginners. I’ve heard a good follow up to this one is Real World Haskell, but I’ve also heard the code for it is outdated, but I’m not certain whether it is (I’ve never read it.)
There is a course on egghead.io that is free by Brian Lonsdorf the author of the Mostly Adequate guide [3]. I hesitate recommending this one as it’s got a pretty diff
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erent approach and uses stop motion that can take some getting used to and the voices can be somewhat annoying, but overall great content wise and covers many of the things in the Mostly Adequate guide. He also does a course on Frontend Masters which is just him giving a workshop in person so no stop motion or weird voices.
Lastly I haven’t actually read this one even though I believe I purchased it when I first saw it announced by the author and it is, Functional Light JavaScript by Kyle Simpson [4]. Great author that always takes a r ally great approach to explaining things he wrote the You Don’t Know JS series that he released through O’Reilly and also put up on github. Kyle Simpson also has a course on Frontend Masters modeled after his book Functional Light JavaScript.
[1]: https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide/blob...
[2]: http://www.learnyouahaskell.com
[3]: https://egghead.io/courses/professor-frisby-introduces-compo...
[4]: https://leanpub.com/fljs
I have learnt monads via the absolutely MARVELOUS book by Brian Lonsdorf.
cf https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide
I agree that Haskell is built around those concepts.
But the point of learning category theory is to change your mindset when programming.
And even in Javascript, it is super useful.
(basically because, while trying to learn category theory, you become fluent in functional programming ).
In From design patterns to category theoryShowing the 15 most recent of 27 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.