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by mrgriffin 2550 days ago
As a professional Haskeller who solves numerical computation problems I wouldn't call ST an escape hatch. You're right that I can't think of a "pure" way to compute a histogram, but I doubt anyone uses Haskell specifically to prevent all mutations but rather to carefully control where mutation can occur[1]. I'd wager referential transparency is "good enough purity" for almost all tastes.

[1] Of course we have plenty of other reasons to use it, but I digress.