Why Isn't Functional Programming the Norm? [video]

The top comment on YouTube raises a valid point:

> I've programmed both functional and non-functional (not necessarily OO) programming languages for ~2 decades now. This misses the point. Even if functional programming helps you reason about ADTs and data flow, monads, etc, it has the opposite effect for helping you reason about what the machine is doing. You have no control over execution, memory layout, garbage collection, you name it. FP will always occupy a niche because of where it sits in the abstraction hierarchy. I'm a real time graphics programmer and if I can't mentally map (in rough terms, specific if necessary) what assembly my code is going to generate, the language is a non-starter. This is true for any company at scale. FP can be used at the fringe or the edge, but the core part demands efficiency.

I had a programming languages survey class in college. The thrust of the course was different languages for different applications. It's not startling that the person, whose comment you quoted, doesn't find the functional paradigm helpful in graphics programming. Functional programming helps with expressiveness and reasoning, i.e. variables don't suddenly change on you when you're not expecting it.

A video game programmer would probably not be helped because a big part of their coding, as I understand it, is wringing out every clock cycle and byte of memory possible. However, the programmer writing the AR/AP system that allows tracking for in-game purchases would find OCaml, for instance, very beneficial.