Does functional programming work?

[dsimcha]

== Quote from Nick Sabalausky (a at a.a)'s article
> "Walter Bright" <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message
> news:hhgvqk$8cj$2 at digitalmars.com...
> > An interesting counterpoint to the usual FP hype:
> >
> > http://prog21.dadgum.com/55.html
> Didn't read the original article, but the one being linked to is completely
> in line with how I feel about not just FP, but all programming paradigms,
> for example, OO: It's great as long as you don't pull a Java or (worse yet)
> a Smalltalk and try to cram *everything* into the paradigm.

I actually think Smalltalk had the better idea.  Java doesn't support any paradigm
besides OO well, and neither does Smalltalk.  The difference is that, in
Smalltalk, at least everything is an object, so you can do "pure" OO well.  Java
is "almost pure" OO, but it lack of ints, floats, etc. being objects, combined
with its lack of support for any paradigm that works well without ints, floats,
etc. being objects, makes the language feel like a massive kludge, and leads to
debacles like autoboxing to get around this.

In multiparadigm languages like D, C++ and C#, the lack of ints, floats, etc.
being objects is less of an issue because, although it's a wart in the OO system,
noone is forcing you to use the OO system for **everything**.