[jonenst]

This has to be a troll. Both snippets of code given in page 2 are pretty readable and self-documented. The author didn't provide an implementation of the same algorithm in an imperative language. I'd be ready to bet that the comparision wouldn't be to the advantage of the imperative language.

[shoo]

I feel that this is a good example of Rich Hickey's simple-vs-easy disjunction. If you are an experienced java programmer, then it is easy to understand code with a similar syntax to java. Code with a foreign syntax will be initially very difficult to understand, even if it has simpler semantics.

[AlexandrB]

I agree that the basic problem is familiarity. Even beyond syntax, OO code carries with it a certain set of idioms that are obvious to anyone versed in an OO language (e.g. instantiation). Likewise, functional programming has its own idioms that are not obvious to someone not versed in any functional language.