MapReduce, which Google built for indexing the entire web, along with many other big data tasks, is an example of something that could only have been invented b

MapReduce, which Google built for indexing the entire web, along with many other big data tasks, is an example of something that could only have been invented by someone familiar with the principles of functional programming: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//archive/mapreduce-osdi04.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c... Imperative/object oriented languages are often more practical for real-world use (MapReduce itself I believe is written in C++), however it's the ideas of functional programming that matter most. Those with experience working in functional languages are at an advantage over developers who've never had that exposure, because they have a wider range of mental tools at hand with which to solve problems.