I'm just getting started with FP and I'm using Scala, which may not be the best way, since I can always fall back to an imperative style if the going gets tough. I'd just rather not. I've got a very specific question that points to a broader lacuna in my understanding of FP.

When a web application is processing a GET request, the user wants information that already exists on the web-site. The application only has to process and format the data in some way. The FB way is clear.

When a web application is processing a POST request, the user wants change the information held on the site. True, the information is not typically held in application variables, it's in a database or a flat-file, but still, I get the feeling I'm not grokking FP properly.

Is there a pattern for handling updates to static data in an FP language?

My vague picture of this is that the application is handed the request and the then-current site state. The application does its thing and returns the new site-state. If the current site-state hasn't changed since the application started, the new state becomes the current state and the reply is sent back to the browser (this is my dim image of Clojure's style); if the current state has been changed (by another thread, well, something else happens ...