Type theory and functional programming: a history

From Frege's Begriffsschrift and Russell's theory of types to the lambda calculus, Curry–Howard, ML and Haskell, dependent types and proof assistants, and functional ideas in mainstream languages. Moments are tagged (type theory, logic, lambda calculus, category theory, proof assistants, languages, compilers & implementation, effects, people) and colored by their first tag; eras are shown as spans and lines trace lineages. Dates are publication or release dates unless a note says otherwise. Summaries are our own; each moment links to its Wikipedia sources.

82 moments · 1879-01-01T00:00:00Z CE – 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z CE · by @athan · @athan

ML

1973-01-01T00:00:00Z CE

The meta language for LCF, with type inference, polymorphism and exceptions; the root of Standard ML, OCaml and F#.