[Haskell-cafe] Re: SoC project: Python-Haskell bridge - request
for feedback
Dan Weston
westondan at imageworks.com
Thu Mar 27 14:19:24 EDT 2008
I notice that you omit from the advantages of calling Haskell from
Python what I consider the most important reason of all (at least from
the Haskell community side).
The choice of programming language (at least at the top level) is
primarily a political or managerial choice, not a technical one. Python
is not merely a "terrific glue language", it is often the "blessed"
language, and currently the language of choice in some industries,
including my own. This is not just "glue code" either: one in-house
application has about 100,000 lines of Python code (calling a comparable
amount of C++ code)!
Any hope of introducing Haskell into this realm requires a way to work
Haskell in slowly and from the bottom. As such I view your proposed
project as quite valuable, a robust and easy-to-use Python-Haskell
bridge (Python on top) being essential to growing the presence of
Haskell in non-academic circles.
Of course, it may be for this very political reason that you have
omitted the above from your list, in which case I completely understand. :)
Dan
Michał Janeczek wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This is my second take on the project proposal.
> I have expanded on a few points, and hopefully
> also clarified a little bit.
>
> Please comment :)
>
> Regards,
> Michal
>
>
> Python-Haskell bridge
> =====================
>
> Description
> -----------
>
> This project will seek to provide a comprehensive, high level (and thus
> easy to use) binding between Haskell and Python programming languages.
> This will allow using libraries of either side from each language.
>
> If we decide to support function callbacks, these two functionalities
> (embedding Haskell in Python, and vice versa) become interrelated.
> In this light, it makes sense to implement them in the scope of the
> same project.
>
>
> Advantages of calling Haskell from Python
> -----------------------------------------
>
> * Robust components
>
> It might be beneficial to implement safety-critical componenets
> in a strongly, statically typed language. Since Python itself is
> a terrific "glue language", such components would usually be purely
> functional, leaving IO to the Python side.
> Embedding Haskell code in this way is of particular interest when
> there already is a large existing Python infrastructure. One can
> implement new functionality in a form of Haskell plugin/component,
> even if complete rewrite is not feasible.
>
> * Performance improvements for speed-critical code
>
> Haskell compiled to native code is typically an order of magnitude
> faster than Python. Aside from that, advanced language features
> (such as multicore parallel runtime, very lightweight threads
> and software transactional memory) further serve to improve the
> performance. Haskell could become a safe, high level alternative
> to commonly used C extensions.
>
> * Access to sophisticated libraries
>
> While its set of libraries is not as comprehensive as that of
> Python, Haskell can still offer some well tested, efficient
> libraries. Some of the examples might be:
>
> * rich parser combinator libraries (like Parsec)
> * persistent, functional data structures (i.e. Data.Map,
> Data.IntMap, Data.Sequence, Data.ByteString)
> * QuickCheck testing library to drive analysis of Python code
>
>
> Advantages of calling Python from Haskell
> -----------------------------------------
>
> * Python as a scripting language for Haskell applications
>
> Python is widely considered to be more approachable for regular
> users. As such, it could be used as a configuration/extension
> language for applications that benefit from extra flexibility.
> One example of such application is xmonad window manager.
>
> * Access to a large number of libraries
>
> As a much more popular language, Python has built up an impressive
> suite of libraries. There already are Haskell projects which rely
> on Python code to implement missing functionality, for example
> a paste bin application hpaste, which uses Pygments syntax coloring
> library.
>
>
> Deliverables
> ------------
>
> * A low level library to access and manage Python objects from Haskell
>
> * Library support for wrapping Haskell values in Python objects. This
> is necessary to allow function callbacks. In addition, thanks to that
> feature large and/or lazy data structures can be efficiently passed
> from Haskell to Python
>
> * A set of low level functions to convert built-in data types between
> Haskell and Python (strings, numbers, lists, dictionaries,
> generators etc.)
>
> * A high level wrapper library for Haskell that simplifies embedding
> and calling Python code
>
> * A set of functions, and possibly a tool, to wrap up monomorphic
> functions and expose them to Python through foreign export facility
>
> * A way (an external tool, or a Template Haskell macro) to easily
> derive conversion functions for user-defined data types/objects
>
> * Documentation and a set of examples for all of above
>
>
> Optional goals
> --------------
>
> In order of increasing amount of work and decreasing priority:
>
> * Exporting a wider class of functions to Python
>
> * A Python module that inspects a compiled Haskell module and
> transparently exposes functions within. This might be possible
> thanks to GHC API
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