Functional programming
A programming paradigm treating computation as evaluation of mathematical functions avoiding mutable state. Functional programming emphasizes immutability and pure functions.
Real World
WhatsApp handled 50 billion messages daily with only 50 engineers by using Erlang, a functional language whose immutability and pure functions made concurrent message processing reliable.
Exam Focus
When comparing paradigms, explicitly contrast mutable state in imperative programming with immutability in functional programming for full marks.
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