Lambda Calculus - Fundamentals of Lambda Calculus & Functional Programming in JavaScript

In this talk, Gabriel from Fullstack Academy of Code introduces the Lambda Calculus, a framework for defining and evaluating functions, and explores its syntax, including variables, expressions, and function definitions. Gabriel explains concepts like beta reduction and combinators, illustrating them with examples such as the Identity, Mockingbird, Kestrel, Cardinal, and Kite combinators. The talk also touches on the history of mathematical logic, highlighting figures like Schoenfinkel, Curry, Frege, Gödel, Turing, and Church, and explains how Lambda Calculus relates to functional programming. Gabriel demonstrates how to represent Booleans and Boolean logic using functions within the Lambda Calculus, encoding true and false as the Kestrel and Kite combinators, and defines functions for negation, AND, OR, and equality. The talk concludes by emphasizing the elegance and beauty of Lambda Calculus, its connection to functional programming, and its practical benefits, such as closures, higher-order functions, and garbage collection.