> "Worse still, an indirect assignment through a pointer, just as in machine code, can update any store location whatsoever"
Aside from functional languages, pretty much every language lets you assign through a pointer. This might be through a field in Java's case, but it's certainly there.
You could argue that people have unanimously agreed that mutable references are wrong, but given the popularity of imperative languages you'll probably not be able to argue that well. Plus, I still contend this is a property of the operation, not the type.
---
To put it another way, it's like calling cars bad because crashes are bad. People still use cars, because they are absolutely useful, and self-driving car proponents (aka. FP proponents) have managed to take away some of their dangers. They're still cars, even if you don't drive them.
Aside from functional languages, pretty much every language lets you assign through a pointer. This might be through a field in Java's case, but it's certainly there.
You could argue that people have unanimously agreed that mutable references are wrong, but given the popularity of imperative languages you'll probably not be able to argue that well. Plus, I still contend this is a property of the operation, not the type.
---
To put it another way, it's like calling cars bad because crashes are bad. People still use cars, because they are absolutely useful, and self-driving car proponents (aka. FP proponents) have managed to take away some of their dangers. They're still cars, even if you don't drive them.