Gofer

Gofer is a functional programming language designed for educational purposes. It was developed by Mark P. Jones in the early 1990s. Gofer is notable for its simplicity and ease of use, making it an excellent tool for teaching the principles of functional programming.

History

Gofer was created as a lightweight alternative to the Haskell programming language. It was designed to be simpler and more accessible, particularly for students and educators. The name "Gofer" is an acronym for "Good for Equational Reasoning."

Features

Gofer includes many features typical of functional programming languages, such as:

• First-class functions
• Lazy evaluation
• Type inference
• Pattern matching

Gofer's syntax and semantics are similar to those of Haskell, but it is more streamlined and easier to learn. This makes it an ideal language for introducing students to the concepts of functional programming.

Implementation

Gofer was implemented as an interpreter, which made it easy to use and experiment with. The interpreter was written in C, and it was designed to be portable across different operating systems.

Influence

Gofer had a significant influence on the development of Haskell. Many of the features and ideas from Gofer were incorporated into later versions of Haskell. Gofer also inspired other educational programming languages and tools.

Related Pages

• Haskell (programming language)
• Functional programming
• Lazy evaluation
• Type inference
• Pattern matching

See Also

• Mark P. Jones
• Programming language
• Interpreter (computing)