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Functional architecture - The pits of success - Mark Seemann

NDC Conferences · talk · Watch on YouTube

Software architecture & designFunctional programming

What it is

Mark Seemann argues that functional programming naturally yields many of the best practices object-oriented developers learn painfully. He shows how functional architecture leads to a pit of success, with a pure core and impure shell.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Recommended as a practical demonstration of how functional thinking improves design without going off the deep end.

  • 5 people recommended it
  • 6 different months
  • 2 strong recommendations
  • first 2018, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “Here is a great talk demonstrating that by following a simple functional approach, your code can naturally fall into a “pit of success”

    Shows simple functional approach naturally leading to pit of success

    adamkl, 2020-10 · Strong recommendation · in “A Theory of Software Architecture”

  2. “His videos about functional programming are amazing (Mark Seemann). "Pit of success" is one of the best.”

    Among Seemann's amazing functional programming videos

    Xunjin, 2021-07 · Strong recommendation · in “Habits of Expert Software Designers (2019)”

  3. “Here is a good talk about these ideas”

    Talk on keeping pure core and impure shell

    pwm, 2018-09 · Recommendation · in “Functional core, imperative shell (2012)”

  4. “Mark Seemann has a good talk on this called the "functional pits of success”

    Seemann's talk on functional pits of success

    kirse, 2021-12 · Recommendation · in “F# Good and Bad”

  5. “which is long but good especially to adjust to a different mindset”

    Long talk helpful for adopting a functional mindset

    tubthumper8, 2025-04 · Recommendation · in “Why F#?”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: mark seemann, pit of success, functional programming, f#, software architecture

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