The Commercial Users of Functional Programming workshop (CUFP) is an annual workshop held in association with the International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP). The aim of the CUFP workshops is to publicize the use of functional programming in commercial ventures. Its motto is “functional programming as a means, not an end.

The Functional Payout Framework (fpf) is a Haskell application that uses an embedded domain-specific functional language to represent and process exotic financial derivatives. Whereas scripting languages for pricing exotic derivatives are common in banking, fpf uses multiple interpretations to not only price such trades, but also to analyse the scripts to provide lifecycle support and more. This paper discusses fpf in relation to the wider trading workflow and our experiences in using a functional language in such a system as both an implementation language and a domain-specific language.

We argue that teaching purely functional programming as such in freshman courses is detrimental to both the curriculum as well as to promoting the paradigm. Instead, we need to focus on the more general aims of teaching elementary techniques of programming and essential concepts of computing. We support this viewpoint with experience gained during several semesters of teaching large first-year classes (up to 600 students) in Haskell. These classes consisted of computer science students as well as students from other disciplines. We have systematically gathered student feedback by conducting surveys after each semester. This article contributes an approach to the use of modern functional languages in first year courses and, based on this, advocates the use of functional languages in this setting.

Lisp programmers have long used macros to extend their language. Indeed, their success has inspired macro notations for a variety of other languages, such as C and Java. There is, however, a paucity of effective pedagogic examples of macro use. This paper presents a short, non-trivial example that implements a construct not already found in mainstream languages. Furthermore, it motivates the need for tail-calls, as opposed to mere tail-recursion, and illustrates how support for tail-call optimization is crucial to support a natural style of macro-based language extension.

Design and quality are fundamental themes in engineering education. Functional programming builds software from small components, a central element of good design, and facilitates reasoning about correctness, an important aspect of quality. Software engineering courses that employ functional programming provide a platform for educating students in the design of quality software. This pearl describes experiments in the use of ACL2, a purely functional subset of Common Lisp with an embedded mechanical logic, to focus on design and correctness in software engineering courses. Students find the courses challenging and interesting. A few acquire enough skill to use an automated theorem prover on the job without additional training. Many students, but not quite a majority, find enough success to suggest that additional experience would make them effective users of mechanized logic in commercial software development. Nearly all gain a new perspective on what it means for software to be correct and acquire a good understanding of functional programming.