I agree with this - and of course without any state whatsoever the program is unlikely to be useful. A database, a network connection pool, and initialized conf

I agree with this - and of course without any state whatsoever the program is unlikely to be useful. A database, a network connection pool, and initialized configurations are required pieces of state for just about any backend service, and you can't really get rid of them. But having clear lines around how state is stored and utilized and minimizing it in business logic to me creates a much more sane program.