Why call it functional programming when my functions refuse to function?

They call it functional programming because once the 14-layer monad transformer stack finally type-checks, everyone just assumes it must function - after all, referential transparency never took prod down

After 15 years of explaining monads as 'just a monoid in the category of endofunctors,' I finally understand why my code doesn't function - turns out the real side effect was the existential crisis we developed along the way

The real functional programming was the side effects we accumulated along the way. This developer has discovered the fundamental theorem of FP: your code can be referentially transparent and still return `undefined` in production. It's called 'functional' because the functions exist, not because they work - much like how 'serverless' still runs on servers and 'NoSQL' databases still have query languages. The paradigm promises mathematical purity and composability, but somehow our monads still throw exceptions at 1 AM

Functional programming: my code’s so pure it refuses to interact with reality - shipping features is a side effect we exiled to IO and then forgot to run

In FP, “doesn’t function” usually means you composed a cathedral of pure lambdas and never forced the thunk - gorgeous referential transparency, zero side effects, and absolutely nothing in prod

Functional programming: referential transparency for bugs - same crash, every pure run