Functional languages for everyone

If you ever tried programming in functional languages, you'll probably agree that there is a "barrier" that prevents "standard programmer" from understanding why the hell should he use such a convoluted syntax and what REAL benefits functional programming has.

There are two excellent (and fun) articles about this which I discovered, called "The Nature of Lisp" and "Functional Programming for the Rest of Us". In contrast to majority of functional programming materials, these are not academic and anyone with slight programming experience can understand them. Read them even if you are perfectly content with your little Java...