Person Name 3

Simon Peyton-Jones (Microsoft Research Cambridge) researches the implementations and applications of functional programming languages. He was heavily involved in the design of the Haskell programming language and the development of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC). We talk about seeing functional programming go from intellectual revolution to practical reality and the importance of investing in programming education.

JY: Tell us about yourself. How did you get here?

SPJ: I first came across computers when I was about fourteen. Our school had one computer, it was a so-called IBM School's Computer, it had 100 memory locations each of which could contain a 10-digit decimal number. A lot of programming was about trying to fit the program into that space. There was one computer for the whole school and there were only two people in the school who cared about this machine. So, my friend Thomas Clarke (he's now at Imperial College) and I spent a lot of time hacking on this. Then we started to build our own computers.