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◈ALB Atlas

ML Superseded

ML
KindProgramming language
Appeared1973
StatusSuperseded
CreatorRobin Milner et al / Edinburgh
FamilyML

The theorem-prover's scripting language that gave the world Hindley–Milner type inference — the ancestor of SML, OCaml, F#, and half of Haskell's soul.

Succeeded by Standard ML OCaml
Created by Robin Milner
Influenced C++

Robin Milner's ML (1973) — Meta Language for the LCF theorem prover — combined strong static typing with full type inference (the Hindley–Milner algorithm), algebraic datatypes, and pattern matching.\n\nSML, OCaml, F#, Haskell's type system, Rust's — all descend from Milner's insight that types could be inferred, not declared.