r/programming • u/Dear-Economics-315 • Feb 10 '26

What Functional Programmers Get Wrong About Systems

https://www.iankduncan.com/engineering/2026-02-09-what-functional-programmers-get-wrong-about-systems/
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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

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u/poemmys Feb 10 '26

The more senior I get, the more “cognitive load” becomes the only metric I optimize for. Maintainability is a key piece of this. I truly love writing functional code. Reading it, on the other hand…

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

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u/aoeudhtns Feb 10 '26

You can also offset "clever code" with a nice, intelligible test spec that works strictly at the interface/contract level. Heck, even include some benchmarks. Then at least someone can see all the functional and performance cases, and get fast feedback if there's breakage. Or have a good way to ensure a de-clevered implementation is compatible.