Functional programming has been a darling of academia for some time. It has practical advantages over traditional coding in terms of code size, code safety and code correctness. With the release of F# for .NET, Microsoft has brought functional coding into the mainstream.

While there are more than a few books available on functional programming, most of them approach the subject from an academia, math-heavy, and theoretical perspective. Professor Kesselman avoids all that, instead giving practical examples and explanations of the mental tools necessary for working programmers to make…