[Haskell-cafe] Summary (Re: Interfacing Java/Haskell)

[Hans Georg Schaathun]

Thank you very much to everyone who responded on java integration.

I have a lot of work to do before I can conclude, but I will give
a quick summary just in case there is some general interest.

The most common approach appears to be a network interface between
separate java and haskell processes.  Both JSON and thrift appear to 
tools to help doing that.  That sounds like a good idea if effort is 
taken properly to plan out the system architecture.  In my case,
it would probably lead me to write more code in haskell than I had
originally planned (for good or for bad).

One poster pointed to neurocyte's library of JNI bindings.  That's
definately something I will look into.  At first sight, it looks much 
easier to get into than I had feared.

The most popular proposal was, nevertheless, to use other languages,
in particular hybrid languages like scala.  In my opinion, that only
solves a minor part of the problem.  In my opinion, the chief virtue
of a pure language like haskell is its simplicity.  Yet, I must admit,
that option was always on my list.  Familiar with python, jython is
a serious option, although I would prefer strong and static type
checking.

Thanks again, everyone

:-- George

On Thu, May 09, 2013 at 11:48:09AM -0700, Dominic Espinosa wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've had some success with the Thrift library (http://thrift.apache.org/).
> See this blog post
> (http://mortenib.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/thrift-and-haskell/) for a basic
> tutorial on getting started. My project was interfacing a haskell library
> of machine learning algorithms (which I wrote) with a large Java
> application I was familiar with but didn't write. So this may be what
> you're looking for. 
> 
> Thrift interfaces language X with language Y with a sort of RPC paradigm:
> you specify the names and types of the possible calls and returns, and
> Thrift uses this file to generate serialization and transport code for
> whatever languages you name. You then add this code to the project on each
> side and things pretty much just work. 
> 
> On Thu, May 09, 2013 at 04:04:19PM +0100, Hans Georg Schaathun wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I am rather new to the café, so I just hope my question fits in.
> > 
> > Does anyone have experience with integrating Haskell and Java?
> > I have done some searching, finding a lot of pointers but hardly
> > anything in terms of evaluation, successes, or caveats.  
> > 
> > From what I see Frege looks promising, arguably not haskell I suppose,
> > but does it work?  Other projects I have seen appear to have reached 
> > a stand-still for ages.
> > 
> > The background for the question is that I will contribute some control
> > algorithms based on machine learning or AI in a larger project.  It
> > would save me a lot of time if I could write in Haskell, but only
> > assuming that interfacing with Java afterwards is trivial compared
> > to writing everything in java in the first place.  I am, perhaps,
> > particularly worried that a Haskell-lookalike for JVM might be
> > unable to optimise properly, like not being lazy.  Any advice?
> > 
> > TIA
> > -- 
> > :-- Hans Georg
> > 
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-- 
:-- Hans Georg