[Haskell-cafe] Threads talking back to parent

[ChrisK]

Joel Reymont wrote:
> So when should I use a STM TChan instead of a regular Chan?
> 
> On Oct 31, 2005, at 10:08 PM, ChrisK wrote:
> 
>> Or perhaps a TChan, if that is more appropriate:
>>
>> http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/stm/Control-
>> Concurrent-STM-TChan.html
>>
>> I like the curried command idiom:
> 
> 
> I'm not sure I understand this. Are you trying to show that the same 
> logToParent approach can be used with Chan, TChan and MVar below?
> 
>> do chan <- newChan
>>    let logToParent =  writeChan chan
>>
>> do tChan <- newTChan
>>    let logToParentSTM = writeTChan tChan
>>    let logToParent = atomically.logToParentSTM
>>
>> do mVar <- newEmptyMVar
>>    let logToParent = putMVar mVar
> 
> 
>     Thanks, Joel

Yes, exactly.  I listed several alternatives.

The logToParent approach hides the actualy mechanism in use.  This has 2
advantages:

* You can switch the code for logToParent without messing with the child
code (or type signatures!) The Chan/TChan are non-blocking while the
MVar (or TMVar) would block, so this is a non-trivial difference.

* The child has no reference to the data structure so the only thing it
can do is write/put via logToParent.  If you had passed the chan/var to
the child then it could accidentally start reading from it.  Which would
be bad.

All this is an example of the "Haskell is the best imperative language"
saying.  An OO language might need a whole class/inferance structure to
support what "writeChan chan" accomplished by currying.

-- 
Chris