This question leaves me with more questions. The post looks at a few alternatives without giving context. 1. How does the course fit the overall curriculum? 2.

This question leaves me with more questions. The post looks at a few alternatives without giving context. 1. How does the course fit the overall curriculum? 2. What is the experience and maturity of the people taking the course? 3. How strong are the teaching skills of the instructor? The density of functional features taught in a certain time period matters. A drastic change in mindset simply takes time that, I would say, is greater than a standard semester. A single semester is fine if FP is going to be reinforced, thereafter, in other courses. Also, starting students with FP instead of imperative or OO means less to break down and relearn. I've read numerous debates that try to define functional programming. I don't want to start another one because they're tedious. My experience is that functional programming is a change in mindset in how to solve a problem and organize code. The instructor's ability to teach matters. The time given to learn matters. Reinforcing the concepts throughout a curriculum matters. For each point I make above, you could make a valid case for a different FP language/ecosystem. As much as I like Haskell, it's not a "one size fits all".