[Locke1689]

Yeah. Personally, I think it was an extraordinarily interesting experiment that didn't pan out. However, the corralling of side-effects (which was necessary for a lazy language) turned out to be one of the best innovations in the space, so that reinforces that we learn as much from mistakes as from successes.

Simon concedes the troubles with laziness and his biggest item of support for laziness is that it keeps you honest in terms of side-effects. I don't buy it. We can control side effects with the type system -- we don't need complete laziness (some laziness is actually quite easy to hand to otherwise eager languages).

P.S. The other major contribution Haskell made to PL was type classes, can't believe I forgot it.