ML

Functional, imperative, polymorphic. First appeared 1973; ml and functional; theorem proving, language research.

Record¶

First appeared	1973
Family	ML and functional
Paradigm emphasis	Functional, imperative, polymorphic
Typing	Static, strong, inferred
Memory	Tracing GC
Execution	Compiled or interpreted
Primary domain	Theorem proving, language research
Designers	Robin Milner, University of Edinburgh
Reference	https://smlfamily.github.io/sml97-defn.pdf
Last verified	not yet checked against its source by a human

Dates are first public release or publication, not the start of internal development. Colour on the typing and memory tags encodes kind, never rank.

Influence¶

Figure 1. ML in the influence graph: recorded ancestors on the left, languages that record it as an influence on the right. Every node links to its own record. Edges name indexed languages only, so an empty side means no indexed relative, not none at all. Source: languages.json.

Within the ML and functional¶

Algebraic data types, exhaustive pattern matching, and inference-driven typing. The source of most type-system features adopted by mainstream languages since 2010.

Language	First appeared	Typing	Memory	Execution
Erlang	1986	Dynamic, strong	Per-process GC	Bytecode VM (BEAM)
Haskell	1990	Static, strong, inferred	Tracing GC	AOT compiled
OCaml	1996	Static, strong, inferred	Generational GC	AOT compiled or bytecode
F#	2005	Static, strong, inferred	Tracing GC (.NET)	Bytecode + JIT
Elixir	2012	Dynamic, strong	Per-process GC	Bytecode VM (BEAM)
Gleam	2019	Static, strong, inferred	Per-process GC	Compiled to Erlang or JavaScript
Unison	2020	Static, strong, inferred	Tracing GC	Interpreted or compiled

7 other languages in this family, ordered by first appearance. ML itself is omitted. Source: languages.json.