>Why do materials on functional programming always have to be at least somewhat condescending towards the reader? Or maybe: why such sentences seems to appear only in them?
Because who else will get to put in such a sentence? A PHP tutorial, or some Javascript one? On what intellectual grounds would they even be able to justify it?
Besides, the accusation is not even true. You can find many C tutorials that are equally "somewhat condescending towards the reader" -- eg. for not understanding pointers, not knowing how the metal works, etc...
Because who else will get to put in such a sentence? A PHP tutorial, or some Javascript one? On what intellectual grounds would they even be able to justify it?
Besides, the accusation is not even true. You can find many C tutorials that are equally "somewhat condescending towards the reader" -- eg. for not understanding pointers, not knowing how the metal works, etc...