Simon PJ's interview in Computer World about Haskell: http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1974033854

contains the following quote: "IO is a side effect as we discussed. IO ensures the launching of the missiles: do it now and do it in this order. IO means that it needs to be done in a particular order, so you say do this and then do that and you are mutating the state of the world." I couldn't help enjoying the following abbreviation: "IO ensures the launching of the missiles ... and you are mutating the state of the world." :-) Nikhil PS: Also, "oh, that's not very cool, how can we launch missiles with that?"