I wouldn't really call functional a "new" paradigm... It's fun learning new tools and tricks, too, so I don't mind advocacy and outreach. But many folks in the

I wouldn't really call functional a "new" paradigm... It's fun learning new tools and tricks, too, so I don't mind advocacy and outreach. But many folks in the cult of functional present it as a panacea -- "If only," they lament, "everyone would use functional languages, we wouldn't have all this terrible software because functional languages eliminate entire classes of bugs!" and other tropes. Even if all the hype is true, that doesn't mean that the functional model of computation is the best (easiest to grok, maintain, or whatever) way to solve every problem. There is room for a variety of ideas and programming models, and I'm glad functional is one of them.