[axilmar]

I will certainly be downvoted for this, but I want to be honest so here it is anyway:

In all my programming years, 20+ years that is, I've met hundreds of programmers, and 95%+ of them handled imperative programming languages just fine, with very few actual bugs coming from each one.

Each time there is such a conversation, I have yet to see some actual concrete proof that functional programming provides a substantial increase in productivity over well-implemented imperative code.

In other words, I am still not convinced about the merits of functional programming over imperative programming. I want some real proof, not anecdotal evidence of the type 'we had a mess of code with C++, then we switched to Haskell and our code improved 150%".

Lots and lots of pieces of code that work flawlessly (or almost flawlessly) have been written in plain C, including the operating system that powers most of Earth (I.e. Unix-like operating systems, Windows etc).

So please allow me to be skeptical about the actual amount of advancement functional programming can offer. I just don't see it.

[ronanyeah]

I think personal experience with multiple paradigms is essential for a developer to decide which one they prefer.

The opinions of programmers who have only used one paradigm are less than worthless, since they are demonstrating a basic lack of curiosity and lack of willingness to invest in their craft.

You can always find excuses not to learn.

[urthor]

I agree fully.

My viewpoint, as a functional programmer, is software is a young field.

We don't know much of anything about it.

We're living in the first 100 years after the Gutenberg printing press.

All I know is NLP code generation will be a dramatic change.

Everything else, we are still figuring out.