19 The functional journey ahead
In this chapter
- Learn how to practice and apply your new skills without upsetting your boss.
- Pick up a new language or two to immerse yourself in functional features.
- Dive deep into the more mathematical aspects of functional programming.
- Open another functional programming book to learn more.
You’ve done it! You’ve reached the end of the book. Along the way, you’ve learned many useful, fundamental skills of functional programming. These skills are immediately useful to whatever kind of project you’re working on. And they form a solid foundation on which to learn more. In this chapter, we’ll get some practical advice for applying our new skills and learn a few ways to continue your learning after you put this book down.
A plan for the chapter
This chapter outlines a celebration of sorts, a kind of rite of passage. It will help you transition from theoretical knowledge to real skill. Here is a plan for this transition.
Review the skills you have learned
We will look back at the skills you’ve learned to appreciate how far you have come.
Form a model of the journey toward mastery
You’ve learned the skills. You are likely excited to start using them. As we learn skills, we go through a common trajectory. This section will give you a meta-perspective on that trajectory so you can navigate toward mastery. You will learn the two-track model.
Establish track 1: Sandbox