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In a short time, functional programming went from an obscure academic endeavor to the technology "du jour" of the software industry. On the one side, this is great, because functional programming holds real promise to simplify the construction of highly reliable software. On the other hand, it is also frightening because the current hype might lead to over-selling and sometimes too uncritical adoption of concepts that have not yet been sufficiently validated in practice. In particular I see with worry the trend to over-abstract, which often leads to cargo-cult technology.

In this talk I give my opinion of what the core of functional programming is that we can and should use today, why that core matters, and where we currently face challenges. I argue for combining functional programming with the principle of least power, for eschewing…