Haskell 98

February 1999Haskell 98

The goals of Haskell 98 are stated in this new ReportHaskell 98 as follows:

Haskell has evolved continuously since its original publication. […] At the 1997 Haskell Workship in Amsterdam, it was decided that a stable variant of Haskell was needed; this stable language is the subject of this Repport, and is called “Haskell 98”.

[…] Haskell will continue to evolve. At the time of writing there are Haskell implementations that support existential types, local universal polymorphism, rank 2 types, multi-parameter type classes, pattern guards, exceptions, concurrency, and more besides. Haskell 98 does not impede these developments. Instead, it provides a stable point of reference, so that those who wish to write text books, or use Haskell for teaching, can do so in the knowledge that Haskell 98 will continue to exist.

Indeed both aspects of this proved true:

• Haskell 98 remained as the latest language specification until Haskell 2010.
• Haskell nevertheless continued to evolve.

Minor revisions to Haskell 98 were published a few years later.