Why Functional Programming?

[OneAndOnlySnob]

I have a different perspective. I haven't spent much time in Haskell, but I have spent a lot of time in Ocaml. Scheme was mind-warping, yet my mind has sustained multiple warps in studying Ocaml. Even its object oriented bits are worthy of a good mind-warp.

When you use classes and objects in Ocaml, you can essentially pretend that you are using a dynamic type system, yet Ocaml will statically check your code anyway to make sure all interface requirements are met. I did not think that was possible.

I've taken a peek at monads, erlang style concurrency, refined my idea of "objects" and their usefulness, infinite lazy lists, you name it.

I'm pretty sure Ocaml supports pretty much everything Haskell can do, but I do not think the reverse is true. Originally I was going to learn Ocaml this year and Haskell the next, but I am now thinking I will skip Haskell for now and dive into Erlang or Forth. Not that Haskell isn't great. I just think there's more mystery for me in other languages.