Co-Creator of Haskell: Useless vs Useful Languages, Rust vs C, Functional Programming | Simon Jones

Simon Peyton Jones discusses the design of Haskell, the benefits of functional programming, and how it compares to other paradigms.

Simon Peyton Jones is the co-creator of Haskell (pure functional programming language) and I interviewed him about functional programming, why it matters, and his thoughts on other programming languages. • My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: read.compose.llc/ 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀: • Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/5d9VR5MwYDWs9qAzo2H6bv?si=tZEd-XCmS… • Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: developing.dev/p/co-creator-of-haskell-functional 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲'𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at workos.com/ 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀: 0:00 Intro 0:39 What functional programming is 9:18 Downsides of functional programming 10:53 Specialized hardware for functional programming 21:47 Haskell is useless 25:59 Rust vs C 28:26 Haskell vs OCaml 35:26 Side effects in Haskell 44:26 Type systems 57:30 How the Haskell compiler works 1:04:35 Why Haskell is talked about more than used 1:09:07 Avoiding success at all costs 1:11:12 LLMs and programming languages 1:13:57 New programming language design 1:15:59 Should students continue to learn programming 1:22:33 Why Excel is his 2nd favorite programming language 1:25:04 Advice for his younger self 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗼𝗻: • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/simonpj/ • Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Peyton_Jones • Personal Website: simon.peytonjones.org/ 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻: • Newsletter: developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲: • Haskell is useless: youtube.com/watch?v=iSmkqocn0oQ • John Backus Turing Award lecture: worrydream.com/refs/Backus_1978_-_Can_Programming_Be_Liberat… • Why functional programming matters: cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/dat/miranda/whyfp90.pdf • Excel is his 2nd favorite programming language: youtube.com/watch?v=_M4P5M85KO8 • His talk on the Verse programming language: youtube.com/watch?v=QIiU-QGzcqc