[Haskell-cafe] Is Haskell a Good Choice for Web Applications? (ANN: Vocabulink)

[Jason Dagit]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Don Stewart <dons at galois.com> wrote:
> dagit:
>
>> In particular, we need expert Haskell programmers, such as Don, to
>> write more about how they avoid space leaks in long running apps.
>> Again, profiling is nice, but that's more of a tuning effort.
>
> I talk a bit about that in my LondonHUG talk:
>
>    http://www.galois.com/blog/2009/04/27/engineering-large-projects-in-haskell-a-decade-of-fp-at-galois/
>
> As I said earlier: stress test with heap profiling on (is one way to
> absolutely ensure you know what's going on).

I wish I could have gone to the talk.  I have a feeling the slides
only tell part of the story.

I did see these bullet points which I think are related:
This one on Laziness:
• Makes time and space reasoning harder!
–Mostly harmless in practice
– Stress testing tends to reveal retainers
– Graphical profiling knocks it dead
• Must be able to precisely enable/disable
• Be careful with exceptions and mutation
• whnf/rnf/! are your friends

This one on performance:
• Really precise performance requires
expertise
• Libraries are helping reify “oral traditions”
about optimization
• Still a lack of clarity about performance
techniques in the broader Haskell
community though

The last bullet point makes me think you do agree with me :)

I thought about it more since my last email, and I think what I want
is something like the Effective C++ and Effective Java books, but for
Haskell.  A series of expert advice "items" with advice about when to
use them.  Real-World Haskell is a very good title, but I feel like
it's at a different audience and level.  Looking over Real-World
haskell I see that some of these topics are discussed, which is really
good.  In particular, Chapter 25 would be valuable to anyone trying to
find space leaks.  There you discuss reduction to normal form, for
example, and some strictness issues and how to control evaluation.

While I'm thinking out loud, it would be very cool if someone wrote
some articles, say for the monad reader, that follow the formula of
the Effective C++ books.  Write up the oral traditions of how to
effectively use Haskell along with the dos/don'ts of each idiom.  I
think it could make a nice companion to the wisdom of Real-World
Haskell.

Have we made any tools yet that analyze haskell code and give warnings
about styles and idioms that are prone to causing space leaks?  For
example, leaky folds are a well known problem.  I know Neil Mitchel
was working on some utilities to offer advice about Haskell source.
Anyone know if his programs can detect potential space leaks?

Thanks,
Jason