I have a very simple Haskell file (HelloWorld.hs) that reads like this: main = do putStr "What's your name? " n <- getLine putStrLn $ "Pleased to meet you, " ++ n When I load it into ghci, I get the following result, as expected: [1 of 1] Compiling Main ( HelloWorld.hs, interpreted ) Ok, modules loaded: Main. *Main> main What's your name? Matt Pleased to meet you, Matt *Main> However, when I compile the same file using ghc and run it in a terminal, I get a very different result: matt@matt-Lenovo-G575:~/Haskell$ ghc HelloWorld.hs [1 of 1] Compiling Main ( HelloWorld.hs, HelloWorld.o ) Linking HelloWorld ... matt@matt-Lenovo-G575:~/Haskell$ ./HelloWorld Matt What's your name? Pleased to meet you, Matt matt@matt-Lenovo-G575:~/Haskell$ -- in other words, the getLine action is being run before the putStr action, for some strange reason. Is this a bug? Can anyone enlighten me as to what might be going on? Regards, Matt.