[Haskell-cafe] Who started 42, and when?

[Janis Voigtlaender]

Denis Bueno wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 1, 2008 at 9:03 AM, Loup Vaillant <loup.vaillant at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>I have read quite a lot of Haskell papers, lately, and noticed that
>> the number 42 appeared quite often, in informal tutorials as well as
>> in very serious research papers. No wonder Haskell is the Answer to
>> The Great Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, but I would
>> like to know who started this, and when.
> 
> 
> I believe it was Douglas Adams, author of the "trilogy" "Hitchhiker's
> Guide to the Galaxy".  You may enjoy reading it, if you haven't.

I think Loup is aware of the hitchhiker books (see the reference to the 
Great Question of ... Everything).

So unless Douglas Adams wrote some Haskell papers I am not aware of, the 
original question is still open ;-)

Happy weekend...
Janis.

-- 
Dr. Janis Voigtlaender
http://wwwtcs.inf.tu-dresden.de/~voigt/
mailto:voigt at tcs.inf.tu-dresden.de