As I said in another response here, it’s incorrect to compare Java 21 or Kotlin and Java 8. You can rewrite your bloated slow Java 8 code in functional reactive approach in Java 21 as well.

You can make a mistake writing any sort of code. What actually matters if it’s readable enough to catch the bug. I would argue that functional languages is the best option here, especially when we’re talking about about huge enterprise applications on complicated frameworks like Akka or ZIO.

So, basically that’s what I meant, but without disrespect to Joe :)

It depends on when have you switched from those “normal” languages to functional, and where do you work now. Java 10 years ago is not Java nowadays, and not Kotlin. These modern languages influenced by advantages of functional languages, and you can even write thr most of your code in the functional style.

Our company has some codebase in Clojure and Haskell, and it was a huge headache to find a substitution for a Haskell engineer when they left. There are so few experts on the market. But of course, if you’re an American big tech company, you’ll find an engineer.

And I’m not saying to you “hey, switch to Kotlin!” Nope, if you’re enjoying what you’re doing and it brings you money — keep going. But the sad reality is that it’s much harder to find a job for a pure funcional coder.

You don’t actually need to know any of the functional programming languages to work in the AI sphere. Moreover, codebase in pure funcional languages is hard to understand and maintain, that’s why they are rarely used in production. Of course you can learn any language for funsies, but I’d recommend Kotlin as a modern hybrid OOP language with a solid functional toolkit