The (destructive) assignment is an extra concept in imperative programming compared to functional programming.<p>It is also a form of resource management and incur resource management issues (do I need that value in this variable? Can I overwrite it and discard old value?).<p>The implicit state also is an implicit communication channel between different parts of program. In FP this communication is much more explicit, especially if you use something like Software Transactional Memory.<p>I think I listed enough points for you to reconsider your stance about Python being easier to grasp.