What does a mouse drag event have in common with an Array of numbers?

The answer to this question may surprise you: they are both collections. This key insight holds the key to dramatically simplifying asynchronous programming in Javascript.

In this talk you will learn how you can use the familiar Javascript Array methods to create surprisingly expressive asynchronous programs. Using just a few functions, you will learn how to do the following:

• Declaratively build complex events out of simple events (ex. drag n' drop)
• Coordinate and sequence multiple Ajax requests
• Reactively update UI's in response to data changes
• Eliminate memory leaks caused by neglecting to unsubscribe from events
• Gracefully propagate and handle asynchronous exceptions

In this talk we'll be exploring the Reactive Extensions (Rx) library which allows us to treat events as collections. You'll learn about how Netflix uses Rx on the client and the server, allowing us to build end-to-end reactive systems. We'll also contrast Rx with Promises, another popular approach to building asynchronous programs in Javascript.

Functional languages are on the rise but real world adoption still faces some problems: finding developers, pitching functional languages to management, immature tooling, etc.

In this panel we'll discuss which issues have an impact on the adoption of functional languages, hear how our speakers have addressed these issues and of course we'll have to for the audience to quiz the panel speakers.