There's a fantastic paper called "Why Functional Programming Matters" by John Hughes [1].
Most of you here will know it, but it's so good that I wouldn't want any newcomers to miss it.
It's from 1984 and IMO still the best essay on the basic idea of FP. For Hughes, FP's fundamental strength is in program composition and modularity, and he shows this with relevant examples.
It's from 1984 and IMO still the best essay on the basic idea of FP. For Hughes, FP's fundamental strength is in program composition and modularity, and he shows this with relevant examples.
[1] http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~rjmh/Papers/whyfp.html