[DanielBMarkham]

New to FP here as well (couple of years playing, more serious work in last few months)

It used to bug me too, but then I realized that common mathematical problems are the only "easy" way to explain how some things work.

Put another way, the problem domain in most applications is laid bare in FP. So your structures are intricately tied to whatever you're doing. You can either put up with a 30-minute "backstory" on why you're writing function foo, or we can just go with some kind of math deal. Usually authors pick the math option.

I found that once I could plow through writing short snippets, then I could start reading example code from the web. That helped a lot.