History of John Backus's functional programming project [draft]

Software Development, Programming Languages, AI & Machine Learning(softwarepreservation.computerhistory.org)view on HackerNews
functional programmingFP languageJohn Backusprogramming languagesAI & Machine Learningsoftware development.

Author: cwbuilds

Date: 7/24/2026

Article Summary:
This article is about John Backus's work on functional programming languages, specifically the FP language, which he developed in the 1970s. The language was designed to be a simple and efficient way to write programs, using a functional style that emphasized composition and recursion.