Not everything is about hitting nails. This is more about thinking about what hammers and nails are made of. If you don't know Church Encodings already, well ty

Not everything is about hitting nails. This is more about thinking about what hammers and nails are made of. If you don't know Church Encodings already, well typed church encodings are going to be a bad place to start. Personally I would look at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogensen%E2%80%93Scott_encoding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogensen%E2%80%93Scott_encodin... it is simpler to teach as a first functional encoding of data types. The fact that it is a visitor pattern is linking insight from functional and object oriented design patterns together. I can see the confusion if one only views those design patterns on a practical level. The article is really teaching the Böhm-Berarducci encoding to more experienced functional programmers as a concept not as a hammer to solve problems.