Understanding and Optimizing Functional Data Structures in Elixir

The talk by Zack Kayser focuses on the differences in analyzing and working with data structures between functional languages like Elixir and classic imperative languages. Kayser explains how immutable data structures in Elixir allow for reasoning about the flow of state, and how optimizing operations can lead to more efficient runtimes. Groundwork is laid for understanding functional data structures and mentions optimized solutions to handle immutability without unnecessary copying. Several data structures are explored with Elixir examples, discussing their characteristics and optimizations. The talk also covers the concept of persistence in data structures, which in functional programming means having multiple versions of data structures coexisting. Kayser delves into strategies like lazy evaluation and memoization to improve efficiency and provides resources for further exploration.