> algebraic sense of wonder

I strongly identify with this view. Have always loved math. I remember writing a paper in middle school on how all of nature is built on math which ties closely with this quote "algebraic sense of wonder". My B.S. degree is in mathematics and I loved it.

And yet... I very strongly - no, extremely - dislike functional programming. When building concrete things, I love pragmatism above all else and to me functional is the diametrical opposite of that. A CPU has registers, instructions and addressable memory. Any abstraction that strays too far from that reality is a distraction (and maintenance burden) I don't want to deal with.