There’s a lot of buzz around F#, an experimental, functional programming language from Microsoft. That buzz extends to C#. The current iteration (3.0) has some functional programming support and the next iteration (4.0) will extend that further.

I don’t see it. I’ve worked with a lot of programming teams. I’ve done Prolog programming. I understand the appeal of functional languages. But its not how most people think. And I can’t even begin to imagine doing corporate development with a traditional staff and trying to walk them through functional programming.

So, to me, the buzz seems to be about features that will never make it into widespread use. How many people use Haskell? How many people have even heard of Haskell? Of Prolog? It makes me doubt the general applicability of functional programming in business development.