Researching the use of an IO Monad in Scala

As I was researching who might be using an “IO Monad” in Scala, I found this quote from Martin Odersky in the Google Group titled “scala-debate”:

“The IO monad was a neat trick for combining side effects with lazy evaluation ... there is only one lazily evaluated language in wide usage today and even its creators have said that laziness was probably a mistake. Strict languages don’t need the IO monad, and generally don’t have it, even though they could. Bob Harper’s posts in his ‘existential type’ series are a good explanation on why not.”

Here’s a link to Bob Harper’s The Point of Laziness article.