Today I tried to explain someone what exactly boost::mpl::fold does and how it is supposed to be used (For those unfamiliar: boost::mpl is a collection of compi

Today I tried to explain someone what exactly boost::mpl::fold does and how it is supposed to be used (For those unfamiliar: boost::mpl is a collection of compile-time metaprogramming mechanisms for C++). I took me a while to realize that the person I was explaining it to had only little problems with the templates and compile-time part but close to no idea what a fold or a lambda are. Not knowing some basics of functional programming can keep a person from understanding so many different things and I have encountered those in different fields (e.g. explicitly like in formal semantics or implicitly in different theories of morphology). I think the real point here is that different paradigms offer you new views onto the world and enhance your understanding all the programming language things aside.