[MichaelGG]

I recall reading that bugs are many times related to the size of the code, across languages. This SO answer has some citations: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/185684

But I think somewhere I read that the number of bugs goes up once a function stops fitting on one screen. Or maybe that was Arthur Whitney - J and K seem to do that nicely, and even his C style does so.

Edit: Of course all those other benefits of F# are huge, indeed. But don't underestimate the advantages and pure joy that excellent "programming in the small" provides.

As far as teams being stuck, you're basically saying that mediocre programmers can't handle good things. That's fine, but then the problem is hiring mediocre programmers. I suppose for a lot of basic CRUD/LOB or "enterprisey" stuff, it's important you can take essentially a typist and have them add business rules (like in Wisconsin, if the user is over 50, remove a certain discount). I don't find this type of programming to be particularly interesting though, so who cares what they use?

[tonyedgecombe]

"I suppose for a lot of basic CRUD/LOB or "enterprisey" stuff, it's important you can take essentially a typist and have them add business rules (like in Wisconsin, if the user is over 50, remove a certain discount)."

Is there really much of that stuff going on? I would have thought they would provide some kind of rules engine to the business rather than hard coding masses of it.

[greggyb]

Yes it's going on, and half of it is hacked together in Excel.