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Discussion on: An Adequate Introduction to Functional Programming

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Vedran Čačić

Of course. Every programming paradigm is clear to the person who internalized it. Same as with natural languages -- yes, there are a few "universal idioms" common to all (or most), but almost everything is based on familiarity, not on some high clarity independent of experience.

Just to show how easy it is to make this mistake: you make it too. :-P Look:

Anyone with a familiarity of any programming language would be able to understand the imperative example

Of course this is not true. There are many functional programming languages, and more and more people are starting with them, since more and more schools are realizing the benefits of FP (again, those benefits are not some lofty clarity ideals, but practical things like easier piecewise testing, and thus easier grading;). But I completely understand that it seems this way to you, precisely because your first experience is with imperative programming.