함수형 프로그래밍

John Hughes의 Why functional programming matters에서는 함수형 언어의 장점을 아래과 같이 설명한다.

Conventional languages place conceptual limits on the way problems can be modularized. Functional languages push those limits back. In this paper we show that two features of functional languages in particular, higher-order functions and lazy evaluation, can contribute greatly to modularity.