[intellectronica]

In theory, purely functional programming is declarative in nature - there are things you can tell about the state of the program just from reading the code, whereas in imperative programming (with loops and changing state) you can't tell with confidence what the state of the program will be without running it. There's a certain appeal to the declarative flavour that I used to care a lot about and somehow managed to forget to care about. FWIW I can't say that my programs became worse when I forgot to care about purity. But there may be some scenarios and domains where this sort of confidence can make a difference, and I just happen to not work often in these areas.