> everyone can understand it The recurrence relation of range(n)=range(n-1):n is easily understood and also already the naive functional implementation. These

> everyone can understand it The recurrence relation of range(n)=range(n-1):n is easily understood and also already the naive functional implementation. These kinds of recursive/recurrence definitions are part of K12 curriculae, and not just at the end of it. Functional programming is not inherently harder to understand than imperative programming. Your school blackboard has been functional and stateless since grade 1. At some point somebody tacked state on to your mental model, and somehow I=I+1 now makes sense. To me it looks like a purely educational problem, when FP is dismissed for not being easily understood, compared to the IP abstractions.