Standard ML
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 66 of 163 programming languages by recommenders
A clean, formally specified functional language that people praise for its elegant design and long stability. Critics point to a small ecosystem and limited production use.
A clean, formally specified functional language that people praise for its elegant design and long stability. Critics point to a small ecosystem and limited production use.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 90%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 9.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Wonderful, well-designed language overall
“Standard ML is a perfect programming language from the 90s.”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “Go 1.27 Is Released” “SML is otherwise a wonderful language”
Comment from 7 Nov 2025 in “Why I love OCaml (2023)” “It has all you dream of and more.”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: A small programming language where everything is a value” - Comment from 7 Nov 2025 in “Why I love OCaml (2023)”
Stable language that rarely changes
“SML is the exact same language it was 30 years ago. And it will be in 30 years.”
Comment from 2 Nov 2025 in “GHC now runs in the browser” “the more stable (if near-abandoned) pastures of Standard ML”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 in “GHC now runs in the browser” Influential lineage behind later languages
“Now when there are so many options finally building on top of Standard ML, and Lisp heritage”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Migrating from Go to Rust” “a long linage of languages since ML/Standard ML”
Comment from 7 Nov 2025 in “We chose OCaml to write Stategraph”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Small ecosystem and community
“I really liked it. But there is even less of an ecosystem around it”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Racket v9.0” “I wish SML had a community like F#”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “F# 10”
Other programming languages people recommend
The four most recommended other programming languages, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 163 programming languages, rankedWhat people said
26 of the 27 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Standard ML is a perfect programming language from the 90s.”
“Languages like (S/OCa)ML, Haskell and Rust will bring this to you.”
“by association languages like Standard ML”
“went all in on scheme and sml. Which is nice in many ways”
“ML hit the sweet spot between functional and imperative programming”
“it's one of very few languages which even has a formal specification”
“Now when there are so many options finally building on top of Standard ML, and Lisp heritage”
“oscillating between “ wow, that’s great I want to use that always ” and “ ew, yuck ” for both languages”
“This is not at all a problem with eg. SML or Erlang”
“I wish SML had a community like F#”
“tacking on the object syntax made SML more verbose”
“The main thing here that's missing in Standard ML (and most other functional languages) is the "mutable" part of "mutable value semantics"”
“It has all you dream of and more.”
“ML-like (Haskell, OCaml, StandardML) languages generally are great at writing parsers”
“Follow the design of Standard ML (SML) and adapt it to systems programming”
“I really liked it. But there is even less of an ecosystem around it”
“I love SML, and came to OCaml a bit begrudgingly”
“I far preferred Standard ML when I learned both back in the day”
“SML is otherwise a wonderful language”
“SML isn't really a production language, though.”
“Records also feel half-baked, with no support for updating fields or for partially-specified records where the full set of fields is not known”
“It is like OCaml, but perfect!”
“a long linage of languages since ML/Standard ML”
“ML syntax is among the most beautiful, and most readable, to me.”
“SML is the exact same language it was 30 years ago. And it will be in 30 years.”
“the more stable (if near-abandoned) pastures of Standard ML”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.