Richard Feldman, "The Functional Purity Inference Plan"
2024-10-16 19:00 (America/Chicago) | PROS, 3200 Kirby Drive, Suite 600, Houston, 77098, United States
Abstract: It’s common for imperative programming languages to announce that they’re adding some new features to support a functional style of programming in that language. The FP experience in those languages is never quite as smooth as it is in functional-first languages, but it’s still appreciated when that’s the style of code you want to write.
The Roc programming language, which has historically been a purely functional programming language, is planning to add some new features to support an imperative style of programming. The imperative experience in Roc will never quite be as smooth as it is in imperative-first languages, but there are some situations when an imperative style genuinely seems like the best fit for the problem at hand.
Some of the new features are familiar – a `return` statement, `for` loops, and opt-in reassignable variables – but the headline feature is “Purity Inference.” With Purity Inference, functions can be either pure or effectful, and the type system tracks which is which so you never have to guess. Both styles of function are called the same way, so there’s no IO/Promise/Future/Task wrapper. But that’s not all…for the full plan, you’ll have to see the talk!
Bio: Richard is the creator of the Roc functional programming language, the author of Elm in Action from Manning Publications, and the instructor for several Frontend Masters workshops: Introduction to Elm, Advanced Elm, and Introduction to Rust. He currently works at https://zed.dev on the open-source Zed code editor.

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Jade Allen, "Shenanigans with the Erlang Language Server"
2024-11-20 19:00 - 21:00 | PROS, 3200 Kirby Drive, Suite 600, Houston, 77098, United States
Abstract: Language servers have been on trend for several years now and Erlang is no exception. In this talk, we will talk about the design and construction of Erlang’s language server and some live demos of how it can help developer productivity and similar tools can help you with your preferred functional language.
Biography: Jade Allen has been writing software for a while. She enjoys garbage television shows, baking, singing and reading historical computer science papers.

Claude Jager-Rubinson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Houston Functional Programmers
Time: Jan 17, 2024 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
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Holiday Social @ On The Kirb (Upper Kirby)
2024-12-18 19:00 - 22:00 | On The Kirb, 5004 Kirby Drive, Houston, TX, 77098, United States
Every December, we hold a holiday social gathering in lieu of a traditional talk. Like last year, we will meet at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, a local Irish pub. We will meet at On the Kirb, 5004 Kirby Drive, off of I-69. Please join us! No agenda, just an opportunity to chat with other functional programming geeks and celebrate the holiday season.

Eric Normand, "Two and a half more domain modeling lenses"
2025-01-15 19:00 - 21:00 | PROS, 3200 Kirby Drive, Suite 600, Houston, 77098, United States
Abstract: We make better software design decisions when we have more information. Domain modeling proposes that we look to the domain as the primary source of information. To do that, we need to see our domain from different perspectives, so I’ve organized my book about domain modeling around lenses. Each lens gives your different information, and it’s your job to synthesize that into design decisions. I’ve presented seven domain modeling lenses already. In this talk, I will finish the set and present two more (time and domain) and also add to the runnable specifications lens.
Bio: Eric Normand has been programming functionally since 2001. He teaches, speaks, and writes. He consults with companies to help them build better software one function at a time. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can find his writing and other projects at ericnormand.me.

Rubinson, Claude is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
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Steven Proctor, "Introduction to Using Clojure.SPEC for Parsing"
2025-02-19 19:00 - 21:00 | PROS, 3200 Kirby Drive, Suite 600, Houston, 77098, United States
Abstract: clojure.spec is often used for validation and testing, but it can also be a useful tool for parsing data. This talk will provide a brief overview of clojure.spec, then show how it can be used to structure and extract information from data. We’ll look at practical examples and discuss when using clojure.spec as a parser makes sense.
Bio: Proctor is a high-functioning geek, that geeks out on programming languages, and functional programming. Proctor also hosts the podcast Functional Geekery.

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Hack Night!
2025-03-19 19:00 - 21:00 | PROS, 3200 Kirby Drive, Suite 600, Houston, 77098, United States
Hack Night is back!
Join us in person at PROS or on Zoom at our usual time (7:00pm Central) for an evening of creative coding. We’ll kick things off with quick introductions and share what we’re hoping to work on—but no worries if you don’t have a project in mind! Let’s be inspired by Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” and spark (ridiculous/nonsense/brillig) ideas:
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
After introductions, we’ll dive in for ~90 minutes of hacking—whether that means building something new, breaking something old, or just experimenting for the fun of it. Pair up if you’d like (we can set up Zoom breakout rooms!), or go solo. At 9:00pm, we’ll regroup to share our successes, failures, and successful failures.
This isn’t about finishing something or even making measurable progress—it’s about enjoying code and geeking out together. Use whatever language or tools you like—or don’t code at all and just hang out.
And if you’re coming to PROS, let’s bring some snacks to share! Not required, but always appreciated.
Be there or be square! (Do the kids still say that? They should!) 🚀
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Steve Bolman, "Organism in Excel" or "Faking VBA to mock Functions as first class `Objects`"
2025-04-16 19:00 - 21:00 | TX
“Organism” is a dimensional analysis algorithm that over the past 20 years I have written in several languages (both FP and OOP paradigms). I decided 18 months ago to attempt to build it using VBA (inside Excel) and was surprised that in fact the hurdles presented by a language that remains fundamentally unchanged since the mid-90s could be overcome. To those not familiar with how Excel and VBA work together, there were reasons I thought it was likely I would not get the results I had hoped for, but with few exceptions I found workarounds.
This will not be a structured talk so I am happy to either discuss VBA in detail or focus on the product ‘Organism’, what it does and why I feel it is important as an tool for global engineering.
Bio: Steve initially presented “Organism” written in Erlang to HFPUG over 10 years ago. A Chemical Engineer by training with 3 decades of experience in capital equipment projects, his understanding of the application of Dimensional Analysis as a tool in augmenting human and machine understanding of the physical reality around us has informed and been manifest in various iterations of ‘Organism, an Engineering Ecosystem’.
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Emily Bernier, "Functional Programming at the Recurse Center"
2025-06-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Zoom
Abstract: The Recurse Center (RC) hosts self-directed, community-driven educational retreats for programmers. Attendees of all experience levels come to work on whatever excites them – compilers, tools, languages, games, research, machine learning, art – alongside a group of thoughtful, curious peers.
Emily, the retreat facilitator at RC, will share how RC works, what makes its culture and structure unique, and some of the wonderfully weird and ambitious things people make there!
Bio: Emily Bernier is a senior facilitator at the Recurse Center, the retreat where curious programmers come to recharge and grow. She studied computer science and psychology in college, worked in a robotics lab, briefly pursued a PhD in developmental psychology, and then spent a decade building software and leading engineering teams. She’s excited to now support folks at RC in pursuing transformative technical experiences.

Rubinson, Claude is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
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Shae Erisson, "Haskell Community, Past and Present"
2025-07-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Zoom
Abstract: I started the #haskell IRC channel in 2001, and spent the next seven years building the Haskell community. I now have OPINIONS.
Bio: Shae Erisson started The Monad Reader, organized several Haskell conferences, and still has much to learn.
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Eric Normand, "On Domain Modeling"
2025-08-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Zoom
Abstract: Domain modeling is crucial for writing correct and well-designed programs. In this talk, we will dive into the more technical side of how domain modeling works, including a definition of abstraction, a mathematical view of how we understand a domain, and a definition of formal systems.
Bio: Eric Normand fell in love with Clojure in 2008. He helps people thrive with functional programming. He is the author of Grokking Simplicity, and he is writing a book on domain modeling.

Rubinson, Claude is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
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Jade Allen, "Assigning Meanings to Programs"
2025-09-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Zoom
This is a dive into Robert Floyd’s 1969 paper which intorduced the idea of flow charts and treated program execution as a series of logical propositions as way of deeply understanding the behavior of software.
Bio: Jade Allen is a software developer with over 25 years of experience building everything from massively distributed database systems to scalable and high performance web services.

Rubinson, Claude is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
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Richard Feldman, "New Ways to Roc!"
2025-11-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Zoom
In the past year, Roc has gotten a new syntax, a new foundational abstraction, and a new compiler. A lot has changed! This talk is a reintroduction to the language, including how it now compares to other functional languages as well as to popular imperative languages – which it now resembles more, despite still being fully functional!
Bio: Richard is the creator of the Roc functional programming language, the author of Elm in Action from Manning Publications, and the instructor for several Frontend Masters workshops: Introduction to Elm, Advanced Elm, and Introduction to Rust. He currently works at https://zed.dev on the open-source Zed code editor.

Rubinson, Claude is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
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Holiday Social @ On The Kirb (Southwest Freeway)
2025-12-17 19:00 - 21:00 | On The Kirb (Southwest Freeway), 3800 Southwest Freeway, Houston, TX, 77027, United States
Every December, we hold a holiday social gathering in lieu of a traditional talk. We will meet at On the Kirb, 3800 SW Freeway 77027, (off of I-69). Note that this is a different location than last year—more convenient, and with more parking!
No agenda, just an opportunity to chat with other functional programming geeks and celebrate the holiday season. This year, we’ll also celebrate handing over HFPUG organizing duties to Nikita. Please join us in giving Nikita a warm welcome!
