Haskell
/HAS-kel/ · noun · Development · Origin: 1990
Definitions
A purely functional programming language with strong static typing, lazy evaluation, and a sophisticated type system including type classes and monads. Haskell is renowned in academia and used in industry for domains requiring mathematical rigor, such as compilers, financial systems, and formal verification.
In plain English: An academic programming language where everything is a mathematical function, known for being powerful but having a steep learning curve.
Example: The new hire said they'd rewrite our API in Haskell — three months later we had a mathematically proven correct program that nobody else could maintain.
Origin Story
A language named after the father of combinatory logic
By 1987, the functional programming community had fragmented into dozens of incompatible lazy functional languages. At the FPCA conference, a committee decided to consolidate efforts into a single, open standard.
They named it **Haskell** after **Haskell Brooks Curry**, the American mathematician who pioneered combinatory logic in the 1930s. Curry's work on the lambda calculus formed the theoretical foundation for functional programming. The concept of **currying** (transforming a multi-argument function into a chain of single-argument functions) is also named after him.
Haskell's type system and purity (no side effects by default) make it famous for being intellectually beautiful but intimidating. The community joke is that Haskell is "the world's finest imperative programming language" -- because its monads are so powerful they can simulate imperative style within a purely functional framework.
Coined by: The Haskell Committee (Paul Hudak, Philip Wadler, et al.)
Context: FPCA '87 conference, Portland, Oregon
Fun fact: Haskell Curry is so influential that three programming concepts are named after him: currying, the Curry-Howard correspondence, and the language Haskell itself. He also inspired the language Brook, named after his middle name.