Why Strings as Classes?

[Walter Bright]

Robert Fraser wrote:
> The big problem IMO is the number of primitive things you need to 
> understand. In A, you need to understand variables, looping and 
> arithmetic operations. In B, you need to understand and think about 
> closures/scoping, lists, the "map" function, aggregate functions, 
> function compositions, and arithmetic operations. What hit me when first 
> looking at it "where the **** did n come from?"

I think B should be clearer and more intuitive, it's just that I'm not 
used to B at all whereas A style has worn a very deep groove in my brain.