[usrbinbash]

> I dont agree with the popularity contest approach though.

Insofar as it didn't prevent the good parts of FP to become mainstream features, I agree.

But the popularity contest IS important for language emergence. I still believe there would be a place for a functional language that strives to adhere to the principles more stricly, and that programming could benefit from such a language gaining a lot of traction. But, as mentioned before, if such a language requires people to deal with a very different syntax, or applies it's principles too rigidly, it will likely fail the popularity contest.

It also is important for paradigms to become pervasive. As I mentioned, FP has a lot to teach even to OOP people. Writing functional code is a great way to organise a program.

But tell that to a young software developer who has only ever been served enterprise spaghetti OOP pasta with extra abstraction sauce garnished with pseudo-encapsulation cheese, and for whom "functional programming" is something he only saw ridiculed as a meme on some subreddits.

No, popularity isn't the only important thing. But it can help things to reach their potential.