Higher-Order Design Opportunities

Presented by Sam Hume

Abstract

Higher-Order Design Opportunities aims to introduce functional programming design concepts to programmers whose world is dominated by OOP thinking. The goal, really, is to introduce new developers to these concepts gently, so they gain an appreciation for the power of these techniques. Of course, the topic was inspired by the MJD book "Higher-Order Perl".

The talk will highlight an ETL type application used to take clinical trial data generated by a major pharmaceutical company and transform it into a form suitable for reporting. The application was originally written in a most pedestrian fashion and violated the DRY principle. The application gets re-used, with modifications, for each new clinical trial the company runs (we do about 70 a year with this client). Each clinical trial is different, but there are significant common elements.

In order to reduce our work load, we needed to modify the application to maximize reuse and encapsulate as many of the core transformational algorithms as possible. Fairly straightforward functional techniques provided significant improvements in re-usability and overall quality.

Details

Time: 1:45
Length: 45 minutes
Room: Socialtext