&gt;  junior programmer<p>&gt; could not explain to me what Functional Programming involved<p>See that first term, give him&#x2F;her a break.<p>I&#x27;ve worked with experienced devs with many year&#x27;s experience who couldn&#x27;t explain the term functional programming, yet practice it every day. Just because you don&#x27;t know the fancy programming term du jour, doesn&#x27;t mean you aren&#x27;t capable or competent.<p>Turns out I&#x27;ve been using the functional programming paradigm since 2001. It wasn&#x27;t until six years later I discovered there was a name for it.