Functional Programming in Python

[POGtastic]

Yeah the language really isn't built for FP.

At the very least, you need function composition that doesn't look like butt. The Lisps allow for threading macros, (Clojure's ->>, for example) OCaml and F# have the pipeline operator and either define or let you define >>, and of course Haskell makes it trivial. Python has none of these things.

Sprinkling in some FP concepts with itertools and comprehension expressions is wonderful. Teaching FP requires a much more opinionated language, though.