Lambda Calculus - Fundamentals of Lambda Calculus & Functional Programming in JavaScript
Fullstack Academy5 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2019–2024
lecture · intro · evergreen · 2019–2024 on HN
Gabriel Lebec's Fullstack Academy talk introduces lambda calculus syntax, the history of mathematical logic, and the essence of functional programming using JavaScript. It also covers combinators, currying and Church encodings.
Repeatedly recommended as one of the most approachable introductions to lambda calculus and combinators.
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5 comments from Hacker News
I found these two videos on combinators and lambda calculus recently. They're only tangentially related to Haskell, but they are the most approachable videos on the topic I have ever seen. ▶ this video link
For anyone interested in the topic (combinatory logic as told through the medium of birds) I adore Gabriel Lebec's talk "A Flock Of Functions: Combinators, Lambda Calculus & Church Encodings in JavaScript" ▶ this video
Just last night I found this excellent introduction to the Lambda Calculus by Gabriel Lebec [1]. It's one of the best I've come across and covers briefly history, building up combinators (using Smullyan's names) leading up to implementing Church encodings and gives Javascript equivalents (or approximations when not possible). The slides themselves are also very aesthetically pleasing, Gabriel has a good sense of colour and design [1] ▶ this video
I would start with lambda calculus. If you pick the right intro video, they'll stray into combinators: ▶ this video is very good.
I suggest you to watch this video if you want to understand how 3 basic functions can be used to create whole language ▶ this video