Now, this and other articles about the difficulty of writing standard algorithms in functional languages makes me want to see FP's pitch be unbundled. The thing is that FP is pitched as a useful thing to learn to get an insight into programming, improve your mental fitness, see things at a higher level and so-forth. But it's also pitched as a way to be more productive and effective as a programmer. Effectively, it's sold as an exercise cycle and a real bicycle, a way to improve yourself and good way to get somewhere.
Now, I'll acknowledge that functional programming probably is great for the higher-level view of programming and such. But the challenges outlined in this article makes me doubtful fp is a productivity tool, a system which will allow some large number of programmers to make a large step in productivity.
I mean, if fp doesn't make simplistic programming faster and stands in the way of a large number of algorithmic approaches, it seems your productivity would consistently hobbled. Is there a counter-argument to this problem?