> At the end of the day what prevents functional languages from being a good fit for low-level programming is that effective low-level programming cannot be ref

> At the end of the day what prevents functional languages from being a good fit for low-level programming is that effective low-level programming cannot be referentially transparent. I'm not sure I agree. "Straightforward" FP, e.g. a bunch of functions defining local vars and calling other functions, can be pretty hard to make low-level (it pretty much assumes a GC, and indirected closures; although tech like linear types can help). However, the more abstract, point-free, pattern-heavy FP seems like a reasonable fit (e.g. pipes/conduit)