tilly, I couldn't agree with you more... I've made a few rants on the topic of Java.. but despite all that I may say against Java, there are instances where it makes most sense (business or implementation wise) to use it.. and I am glad I knew it (well, it got me the job I have, ye know ;o)

Although I don't admit(1) to understanding all about functional programming..I consider myself fortunate to be introduced to Prolog (and indirectly to Lisp and Scheme) when I was in university... together with a great data structures course (in Modula-2, of all things) I "understood" most of the topics that are covered in the upcoming book you mention... I think I realize what a great insight such programming can actually afford you in real life day to day programming tasks..(but wait, isnt most of 'real life' programming about data structures ? ;o)

As a point to mention, one of the first problems we had in our Prolog class was to define and traverse a family tree.. with the use of a hash and $_ I was able to show off Perl's capability to do the same in only a few more lines :o)

Right now, though, I think I've hit a plateau of sorts.. Perl and Java seem to occupy most of my coding hours now (well, granted, I don't seem to have endless student hours to try out other stuff in)... Perhaps relearning Scheme and possibly going with Guile or Haskell ? who knows.. but I think experimenting with different languages is more than half the fun :o) Perl works for me, but I think the more (languages) I try to understand, the more productive I can be, in any language...

my <$0.02
Update: (1)"not admitting to" means, I only fiddled around with it for one year... I'd like to think I know a bit about it however, but then, I thought I knew 'a bit' about Perl too ;o) (drop in the ocean is a phrase that is particularly appropriate here)