🔍 Overview - Unit 5

Through the trilogy beginning with this unit (Units 5, 6, and 7), we will explore the essence of Functional Reactive Programming (FRP).

In this unit, we will start by delving deep into the philosophical background of the core Timeline library. This library’s innovation lies in its redefinition of internal state changes (mutation)—often considered a “theoretical compromise” for performance in many FRP libraries—as a theoretically justified means to faithfully represent the “Block Universe” model. This is a clearly distinct approach that treats internal mutability not as a deviation from theory, but rather as a necessity for being faithful to the concept.

Upon this philosophical foundation, we will unravel how core APIs like map, bind, and using enable robust declarative programming. The explanation will be centered on the library’s conceptual origins in F# code, then expanded to its TypeScript/JavaScript API. We will proceed by presenting interactive web demos to provide an intuitive understanding of each concept.