Denotative programming timeline

This is a conservative timeline of denotative-programing and related articles.

Please update this list as it becomes outdated! If you find a tutorial, article, post, comment, or message that stands on its own with regards to denotative programming, then please take a moment to paste the link somewhere on this page (register a throwaway account, if you prefer) - the date, author, and other details can be added later. This will greatly help others who are using this list as a resource for learning about denotative programming.

before 2000

• 1966-03 (published date) The Next 700 Programming Languages - Peter Landin

  "The word `denotative` seems more appropriate than nonprocedural, declarative or functional. The antithesis of denotative is `imperative`."

• 1978-08 (published date) Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? A Functional Style and Its Algebra of Programs - John Backus

  "Denotational semantics and its foundations provide an extremely helpful mathematical understanding of the domain and function spaces implicit in programs."

year 2010

• 2010-01 Is Haskell a purely functional language? - Conal Elliott

  "When I bash monadic I/O, my real complaint isn’t with the technical invention–which I like. Rather, I’m cranky about confusion and misleading communication, and about distraction from what we originally meant by 'functional programming'–from what I call 'denotational programming'.

I don’t mind that we haven’t yet been liberated from the von Neumann model. As long as we remember we haven’t.

As long as we keep on searching."

• other articles:

• Can functional programming be liberated from the von Neumann paradigm?
• The C language is purely functional

year 2016

• 2016-10 Denotational Design - from meanings to programs (slides) - Conal Elliott

year 2017

• 2017-10 Why do our programs need to read input and write output? - Gabriella Gonzalez

year 2018

• 2018-07 My growing Anti-IO-Monad Obsession - Steve Krouse

year 2019

• 2019-11 The Misunderstood Roots of FRP Can Save Programming - Steve Krouse

year 2022

• 2022-05 The Lost Elegance of Computation - Conal Elliott

• 2022-08 Denotational Design - Conal Elliott

• 2022-09 (Research invitation and resources) - Conal Elliott

  "If you're familiar with my work or you've listened to the interviews linked above, you'll know that I prefer denotational to operational perspectives."

year 2023

• 2023-06 Building a Future of Scalable Reliable and Efficient Computing - Conal Elliott

• 2023-08 Why imperative code is worse than functional code - Jaro Reinders

• 2023-08 Timely Computation - Conal Elliott

See also

• Denotative
• Functional Reactive Programming