Orwell (programming language)

{{One source |date=March 2024}}

{{Infobox programming language

| name = Orwell

| logo =

| paradigm = Lazy, functional

| designer = Philip Wadler

| developer = Martin Raskovsky

| year = {{Start date and age|1984}}

| latest release version = 6.00

| latest release date = {{Start date and age|1990|01}}

| typing =

| operating system = Unix

| license =

| website =

| file ext =

| implementations =

| dialects =

| influenced by = Miranda

| influenced = Haskell

}}

Orwell is a small, lazy evaluation, functional programming language implemented principally by Martin Raskovsky and first released in 1984 by Philip Wadler during his time as a Research Fellow in the Programming Research Group, part of the Oxford University Computing Laboratory. Developed as a free alternative to Miranda, it was a forerunner of Haskell and was one of the first programming languages to support list comprehensions and pattern matching.

The name is a tribute to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the year in which the language was released. In the late 1980s and the 1990s, most of the computing practical assignments for undergraduates studying for a degree in Mathematics and Computation at Oxford University were required to be completed using the language.