[wruza]

There’s nothing particularly FP about it though. A function taking a value and returning a new value is as “FP” as a good deed is “Christian”.

[Vinnl]

That's mostly a discussion about semantics, which isn't that interesting IMO. It demonstrates the use of pure functions that avoid side effects, and argues that this is how you can get some important benefits associated with functional programming without having to "read a multi-faceted inside-out mess".

If you have a definition of FP that intrinsically includes that mess, then sure, maybe that's harmful, but that seems orthogonal to the article in question.