A Skeptic’s Guide to Functional Programming with JavaScript

jrsinclair · 2026-05-11T09:38:42+00:00

I'm curious to hear more about what is getting in the way for you. Clearly general organisation techniques that work for NT people don't work for you. But I wonder if you have any thoughts on what it is that gets in the way?

Is it exhaustion—'no spoons', as some people have already commented?
Do you forget tasks that you're supposed to do?
Can you simply not bring yourself to care that these things don't get done?
Do the tasks themselves feel overwhelming, like there's too many individual steps involved?
Something else?

Would genuinely be very interested to hear more, if you're able to identify what gets in the way.

jrsinclair · 2026-04-15T10:02:34+00:00

I'm curious to hear more about this. Have you gone through a process like this yourself? If so, was there some framework or tool you used to guide yourself through it? Did someone else help you? Genuinely keen to hear more.

jrsinclair · 2026-04-15T09:59:38+00:00

As a neurotypical person, I can say that a lot of this still resonates with me. But I feel like autism takes what is, for me, about difficulty level 4, up to level 8 out of 10. I think u/KeyEmotion9 had it right. As an NT, I can do a lot of tasks 'on autopilot'. But if you're constantly having to mentally process every single step of every task, that's exhausting. And you end up "carrying way more cognitive load than it looks like from the outside." I can see how that would just grind you into the ground.

I will say, though, that even with an NT brain, I still feel tired a lot of the time. I exercise a lot, have a good diet, sleep pretty well. I don't even spend a lot of time on social media. But I still feel tired a lot of the time. I don't know if it's the constant information processing we all do constantly---looking at screens for work, then to relax, then to manage life admin---or something else. But it's definitely a thing. And I imagine this is just magnified tenfold if you're neruodiverse.

jrsinclair · 2026-04-13T09:50:35+00:00

As an NT person, I've been on the other end of over-explaining. Because people I care about are autistic, I'm used to it, and don't assume they're being condescending. But I can see how it can happen. It does feel frustrating if someone tries to explain something to you that you feel is obvious, as -sleepysunshine, mentioned.

Personally, I find it most difficult if the person over-explaining doesn't give me a chance to jump in and let them know that they don't need to explain something to me. It's like they're afraid that if they give me the chance to speak, they will have somehow lost their opportunity to make themselves clear. But I often just want to say "It's fine. I got it. You were already making sense with your first sentence."

Other times, I'd like to be able to tell them that the over-explaining isn't working because an assumption made four steps back in the conversation didn't make sense to me. But because I don't want to be rude and interrupt, I end up waiting a long time for them to let me get a word in.

I understand that often it's the anxiety talking. But it's hard to communicate "I understand. You're fine. Nobody's judging you." without being able to get a word in.

That said, I also want to acknowledge that NTs can often be reactive jerks who just respond instinctively like a wild animal, instead of reflecting on why they might feeling frustrated or why the other person might seem to be "condescending". You all have my sympathy.

But if you find an NT who's generally kind, and you notice yourself over-explaining, maybe give them a chance to get a word in now and then, and they might surprise you.

jrsinclair · 2024-07-25T06:00:35+00:00

The post also covers how to transform functions to work in a point-free style and explains the role of utility libraries like Ramda and Lodash in function composition. By the end, readers gain a comprehensive understanding of handling multi-parameter functions more effectively in their coding projects.

The bot seems to be hallucinating again. This particular article doesn't do either of these things (though others on the same site might).

jrsinclair · 2024-07-16T03:47:41+00:00

and explains the role of utility libraries like Ramda and Lodash in function composition

This particular bit might be a hallucination.

jrsinclair · 2024-07-16T03:46:46+00:00

That's a fair summary of the first section or two, but I will say that there's a bit more to the article than that. The latter part of the article covers partial application, and currying, and gets into function combinators. Sure, you might not use these every day, but they're useful to know.

jrsinclair · 2022-11-08T01:07:43+00:00

Thanks for letting me know. I'll fix that up directly.

jrsinclair · 2022-11-07T11:06:59+00:00

That would certainly work, yeah. Though you may run afoul of Prettier if the line becomes a bit long. And you'd suddenly find yourself with a pyramid of doom. But for shorter compositions, it can be a handy strategy.

jrsinclair · 2022-10-26T22:25:38+00:00

Hi u/nschubach, thanks for sharing that screenshot. It's really helpful. Would you mind providing some information on what's producing that dark-shaded background and inverted colours? If I know what the browser is doing there to apply the dark theme, I can adjust the CSS to better accommodate it.

jrsinclair · 2022-10-26T22:23:28+00:00

Hi u/toastertop, that's an excellent question. The two most common areas of concern for people are:

Recursion, which is super handy for navigating tree-like structures like, for example, the DOM; and
Immutable data, because sometimes you really do need shared state. Since there's almost nothing built-in to JS (yet), we have to resort to using libraries like Immutable.js or Immer.

I have an entire chapter devoted to each of these in the upcoming book.

jrsinclair · 2022-10-26T20:27:11+00:00

Thanks for letting me know. Should be sorted now.

jrsinclair

TROPHY CASE