John Backus: Function Level Programming and the FL Language 1987
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it as the primary source for Backus's ideas on programming beyond the von Neumann style, in threads about dead technologies and obscure languages.
What it is
A 1987 talk in which John Backus, creator of Fortran, presents function-level programming and the FL language, a successor to his FP work. It is an archival recording with links to the related paper.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2019 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites maxharris · 2019-07 · on “Ask HN: What's a technology that died that you wished was still here”
John Backus's FL: [this video] IBM research really should release the FL compiler they wrote! They stopped working on it in the early 90s, and haven't said a single thing about it since. There is the beginnings of a Haskell implementation that I tried to mess with a bit, but I don't know enough Haskell to get anywhere: [LINK]
Cites mlajtos · 2022-10 · on “Show HN: A small, weird and unpractical programming language”
I see FP [0] (and FL [1,2]) as continuations of the original APL vision – an algebra for programs. It is really nice to see this implementation of FP and I hope it will spark interest in the community. :) [0]: [LINK] [1]: [LINK] [2]: [this video]
Cites metazip · 2026-08 · on “History of John Backus's functional programming project [draft]”
Videos to FL and FP: John Backus: Function Level Programming and the FL Language 1987 ( [this video] ), John Backus Group Meeting - IBM Research - 5 July 1989 ( [LINK] ), Backus on functional programming ( [LINK] ) from Original: Oral History of John Backus ( [LINK] )