GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech How to Get People Excited about Functional Programming • Russ Olsen & James Lewis
Nov 21, 2025
In this engaging discussion, Russ Olsen, an author and software engineer known for his work on Lisp and functional programming, joins James Lewis, a director at Thoughtworks. They delve into the challenges of teaching functional programming, emphasizing the need for relatable examples over abstract math. Russ shares insights on Clojure's unique data-centric design and how it contrasts with traditional object-oriented approaches. The duo also discusses paradigm shifts in programming and how moments of shared purpose, like the Apollo moon landing, can inspire engineers.
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Explain The Thought Process, Not Just Terms
- Many explanations of functional programming are correct but unhelpful because they describe end results, not the thought process that leads to them.
- Teaching the step-by-step reasoning that produces functional code helps learners actually adopt the style.
Learning Lisp By Building One
- Russ learned Lisp by building his own Lisp interpreter, which demystified the language for him.
- He now plans a book, The Lisp Adventure, to teach Lisp by implementing one in Python.
Terseness Demands Shared Conventions
- Clojure is terse and powerful, which can make code hard to read unless the community adopts consistent patterns.
- Clojure programmers intentionally standardize coding practices to combat
