Immutable Data Structures
Immutable data structures are data objects whose state cannot be modified after creation, meaning any operation that appears to change them returns a new instance instead. This concept is fundamental in functional programming and is used to ensure data consistency, prevent side effects, and simplify state management. Common implementations include persistent data structures that share parts of the old structure to optimize performance.
Developers should learn immutable data structures when building applications that require predictable state, such as in React for UI updates, Redux for state management, or concurrent systems to avoid race conditions. They are essential in functional programming paradigms to enable pure functions and are valuable in debugging and testing due to their deterministic behavior.