ML (programming language)

ML is a general purpose functional programming language developed by Robin Milner and colleagues at the University of Edinburgh beginning in 1973. It is a statically typed language with polymorphic type inference in the Hindley Milner style, meaning most programs need no explicit type annotations, and it also supports imperative features such as mutable variables and exceptions. ML was originally designed as the metalanguage for the Edinburgh LCF theorem prover, serving both as a tool for developing proof tactics and as the system's own command language. Its type system and functional core directly shaped the later ML family, notably Standard ML and Caml, and its influence reaches further into modern languages including Haskell, OCaml, F sharp, Rust and Scala, which all trace elements of their type inference and functional style back to this work.