Topiary and the Art of Origami
By Zainab Ali
Topiary and the Art of Origami
Recursive data structures are a core tool of any functional programmer's toolkit, but they are also one of the most challenging. Budding functional programmers are plagued with nightmares of infinite recursion, mental stack overflows, and the terrifying fixed point. Recursion schemes, generalised folds and unfolds with exotic names and signatures, are a further hurdle to overcome. But past this hurdle there are many rewards. This talk uses the power of recursion schemes to predict survival on the Titanic. We will show that recursion schemes can be used to grow a decision tree and make predictions from it. Furthermore, they give us far more benefits than the basic folds or unfolds we would otherwise use. You will make use of many folds, unfolds and even refolds. Be prepared to exercise your skills in origami!