Co-Creator of Haskell: Functional Programming, Thinking in Types, Useless Languages | Simon Jones

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: https://read.compose.llc/

Podcast links:

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/xcB_LF3cdqw

• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835

• Transcript: https://www.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 https://workos.com/

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(00:39) What functional programming is

(09:18) 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

(01:04:35) Why Haskell is talked about more than used

(01:09:07) Avoiding success at all costs

(01:11:12) LLMs and programming languages

(01:13:57) New programming language design

(01:15:59) Should students continue to learn programming

(01:22:33) Why Excel is his 2nd favorite programming language

(01:25:04) Advice for his younger self

Where to find Simon:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonpj/

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Peyton_Jones

• Personal Website: https://simon.peytonjones.org/

Where to find Ryan:

• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/

• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/

• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

Referenced in this episode:

• Haskell is useless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSmkqocn0oQ

• John Backus Turing Award lecture: https://worrydream.com/refs/Backus_1978_-_Can_Programming_Be_Liberated_from_the_von_Neumann_Style.pdf

• Why functional programming matters: https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/dat/miranda/whyfp90.pdf

• Excel is his 2nd favorite programming language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M4P5M85KO8