[jlouis]

It does produce results, but the results are probably more hidden. Rumor has it that 50% or more of all telecommunication uses Erlang, a mostly-functional programming language. This is a tremendous success, but few people know of the fact.

I like to think that the whole discussion is straw-man. The useful, reusable software can be created in any language. But when every project is a gamble, and most projects starts out as imperative in orientation, then the chance of those bubbling to the top is greater. Good modularity of software happens on a higher level than picking the programming language of choice.

[blablabla123]

>It does produce results, but the results are probably more hidden. Rumor has it that 50% or more of all telecommunication uses Erlang, a mostly-functional programming language. This is a tremendous success, but few people know of the fact.

Probably the statement "> 50% of large telecommunications companies have done something with Erlang at some point in time" is correct. I guess you could even make it a 100% considering that parts of routers are often programmed with FP.

However, most stuff is done in imperative languages. ;) Routing and Connection handling is certainly nice using FP, just consider the amazing Hot Code Swapping features in Erlang. On the other hand, writing APIs, connecting those etc. is much more convenient in imperative languages.