Haskell is a programming language focused on functional programming. Its name is spelled [ˈhæskəl], pronounced "HASS-kəl". The spelling of "Haskell" can be explained using IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) phonetic transcription. The first syllable is pronounced with an open front unrounded vowel /æ/. The second syllable has a voiced alveolar fricative /z/ and a voiceless velar plosive /k/. The final syllable is unstressed and pronounced with a schwa /ə/. The spelling of "Haskell" accurately represents its pronunciation as taught in the English language.
Haskell is a functional programming language that was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is named after the logician Haskell Curry and is primarily used for research, education, and industrial applications. Haskell is a statically typed language that emphasizes concise and expressive code, modularity, and strong type checking.
In Haskell, programs are written by composing functions together. The language is equipped with a powerful type system that ensures type safety and helps prevent runtime errors. It supports type inference, which means that the type of an expression can often be inferred from its context, reducing the need for explicit type declarations.
Haskell provides a rich set of features such as lazy evaluation, higher-order functions, pattern matching, and list comprehensions. It also includes a sophisticated module system for organizing code and promoting code reuse.
One of the defining features of Haskell is its purity, which means that functions in Haskell do not have side effects and always produce the same output for the same input. This makes it easier to reason about and test Haskell programs.
Haskell has a strong and active community, with numerous libraries and tools available to support development. It has influenced the development of other programming languages and has been used in various domains, including web development, data analysis, and formal verification.
The word "Haskell" is primarily associated with the Haskell programming language. It is named after Haskell Brooks Curry, an American mathematician and logician who made significant contributions to the field of mathematical logic and the development of combinatory logic.
Curry was influential in the understanding of functional programming and the fundamental concepts that Haskell incorporates. The creators of the Haskell programming language chose to honor Curry by naming their language after him, as a tribute to his work and his influence on the field of programming languages.