Haskell: origins, evolution, and future by Simon Peyton Jones
Haskell is an unusual survivor in the Darwinian landscape of programming languages: it is long-lived (36 years old), yet not mainstream; it is both a research platform and a production tool; it pushes the boundaries of what you can do with static types; and (anecdotally) it inspires joy as well as offering utility. In this talk I'll describe how Haskell came to be, and what (in retrospect) I think are its most important contributions. I'll talk about how it has evolved, especially in response to the demands of companies using Haskell in production.
I’m an Engineering Fellow at Epic Games. Prior to that I was a researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge (1998-2022), and a professor at Glasgow University (1990-1998). I’m a Fellow of the Royal Society, an Honorary Professor of at Glasgow, and an Honorary Distinguished Fellow of the Cambridge University Department of Computer Science and Technology.
I’m interested in the design, implementation, and application of lazy functional languages. In practical terms, that means I spend most of my time on the design and implementation of the language Haskell. In particular, much of my work is focused around the Glasgow Haskell Compiler, and its ramifications.