In this talk Simon discusses Haskell’s birth and evolution, including some of the research and engineering challenges faced in its design and implementation. Focusing particularly on the ideas that have turned out, in retrospect, to be most important and influential, as well as sketching some current developments and making some wild guesses about the future.
“Haskell is my first baby, born slightly before my son Michael, who is now in his mid-20s. From somewhat academic beginnings as a remorselessly pure functional programming language, Haskell has evolved into a practical tool used for real applications and, amazingly, is still in a state of furious innovation.”
Simon Peyton Jones
Simon Peyton Jones MA, FACM, FBCS, CEng, FRS researches the implementation and applications of functional programming languages, particularly lazy functional programming. Simon graduated from Trinity College Cambridge in 1980. After two years in industry, he spent seven years as a lecturer at University College London, and nine years as a professor at Glasgow University, before moving to Microsoft Research (Cambridge) in 1998. Simon is also chair of Computing at School, the grass-roots organisation that was at the epicentre of the 2014 reform of the English computing curriculum.
