E-Prime: English without the verb 'to be'

I didn't notice at first, but, like with some other Wikipedia articles, the editors of this one have enforced the E-Prime constraint on the article itself. After the possibility occurred to me and I went back to the page to check, I only found it particularly unnatural in the initial sentence, since almost every other article begins with the sentence "[subject] is [concise definition]." For a similar example, the "Plot Summary" section of the page about "A Void" also conforms…

One of my school's founders gave an essay-writing workshop when we applied to colleges, and told me about this when critiquing my essay. IMHO, you should think of it as a good exercise instead of a writing style. You don't need to eliminate all forms of "to be" in your writing. However, thinking about how you would do so forces you to choose your words more carefully. You can add "to be" back in later once you've mastered E-prime. You…

In Spanish, we have two different versions of "to be": 'ser' is for defining what something is (I am a human), and 'estar' is for temporary states of being (I am sad). I do find it strange that English assigns the two meanings to one word.

Fascinating, though I must read more before I comment substantively. You - or anyone reading this comment - use E-Prime in a functional context?