I second taking a look at Clojure. Also, your comment of: The world is imperative! Things have state! We do not live in an imaginary fluffy world of mathemati

I second taking a look at Clojure. Also, your comment of: The world is imperative! Things have state! We do not live in an imaginary fluffy world of mathematical elegance & correctness. I would check out article by Rick Hickey on state on the Clojure website: http://clojure.org/state http://clojure.org/state It will get you thinking about how often your objects really need to have "state".