It influenced my thinking in the realization that programming is much about a culture as it is about a technology. Functional programming should succeed as some

It influenced my thinking in the realization that programming is much about a culture as it is about a technology. Functional programming should succeed as something that makes difficult work easier, but a lot of FP advocates want it to be the opposite of that. For a brief period, I too thought, "Hey, I can learn this stuff and then I'll get to work with smarter people!" Smart doesn't work that way. Shame on me for not learning the same lesson from OOP. These are good technologies, but toxic culture undoes all the good and more. End result: We can't have nice things, because the arguments are bogus.