[Haskell-cafe] Re: A suggestion for the next high profile Haskell project [Was: Re: What is a hacker?]

[Neil Mitchell]

Hi Joachim,

> > >Why? In case the strictness analyzer was buggy?
> >
> > I'd be perfectly happy if that analysis were just a note saying "run ghc
> > with such-and-these options and inspect the intermediate code for
> > function foo to see that the strictness analyzer determined it will
> > always terminate".
>
> I think you are asking too much from the strictness analyzer.

Why would you want strict code? Haskell's lazy semantics makes it much
more amenable to equational reasoning. If you keep this laziness you
can do all manner of proofs on the code.

If what you want is real-time guarantees then something like the Hume
project might be what you are after. Shoving a strictness analyser
over a piece of code only returns info about the WHNF, nothing deeper.
If you take it as anything more than an optimisation hint, it will
come back and bite you...

If what you do want is termination proofs, then you want this:
http://www-i2.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/giesl/papers/RTA06-distribute.ps

Thanks

Neil