Index of /~pkal/pub/gfp

A Geneaology of Functional Programming Languages

Abstract: In a critical contribution to the futile endeavor to agree what "functional programming" even is supposed to be, I will be sketching the background, conditions, implementations and development of features commonly associated with functional programming (recursion, pure and first-class functions/higher-order functions, ADTs, absence of side-effects, lazy evaluation, ...).

Referenced Texts

• LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual, McCarthy et.al. (1960)
• The Next 700 Programming Languages, Landin (1966)
• HOPE: An Experimental Applicative Language, Burstall, MacQueen, Sannella (1980)
• A Theory of Type Polymorphism, Milner (1979)
• Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style?, Backus (1977)

Further Reading, etc.

• The Early Development of Programming Languages, by Knuth, Pardo
• History of Haskell: Being Lazy with Class
• Some History of Functional Programming Languages by Turner
• The History of Standard ML by MacQueen, Herper and Reppy
• The Evolution of Lisp by Steele and Gabriel
• Presentation by Peter Landin at Computer Conservation Society, 2001

Errata

• (2026-01-13) An earlier instance of a case expression before NPL/HOPE can be found in Proving properties of programs by structural induction by Burstall in 1969, where he notes:

  These cases expressions were partly suggested by a case switch on type introduced into CPL by M. Richards (1967).