[Haskell] Haskell Weekly News: October 31, 2006

Donald Bruce Stewart dons at cse.unsw.edu.au
Mon Oct 30 21:08:55 EST 2006


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Haskell Weekly News
http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/HWN
Issue 47 - October 31, 2006
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Welcome to issue 47 of HWN, a weekly newsletter covering developments
   in the Haskell community.

   This week we see a number of community documentation and maintenance
   efforts, and the appearance of indexed data types in GHC

Announcements

     * Associated data types in GHC. Manuel Chakravarty [1]announced the
       availability of indexed data types, an extension of our earlier
       proposal for [2]associated data types, in GHC's development
       version. Detailed information on where to get the right GHC and
       how to use indexed types is available from [3]the Haskell wiki.

   1. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/14447
   2. http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~chak/papers/CKPM05.html
   3. http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/GHC/Indexed_types

     * Yhc Bytecode library 0.3. Robert Dockins [4]announced the release
       of the [5]Yhc Bytecode library, version 0.3.

   4. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/14434
   5. http://www.eecs.tufts.edu/~rdocki01/yhc-bytecode.html

     * Haskell Program Coverage. Andy Gill [6]checked the latest version
       of HPC, with GHC support, into the head GHC branch

   6. http://www.galois.com/~andy/ray/hpc.html

     * Haskell Mersenne Twister. Lennart Augustsson [7]made available his
       Haskell implementation of the Mersenne Twister random number
       generator.

   7. http://www.augustsson.net/Darcs/MT/

     * Haskell-specific Google Search Engine. Don Stewart [8]initialised
       a Haskell-specific search engine, as part of Google's coop engine
       system, which seems to do a good job of targeting just Haskell
       sites, in particular, mailing list items

   8. http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=015832023690232952875%3Acunmubfghzq

     * A process for submitting library extensions. The libraries hackers
       [9]have developed [10]a document describing how to best go about
       contributing new code to the core Haskell libraries. On a similar
       note, the GHC team has prepared [11]a page on best practice for
       GHC submissions.

   9. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.libraries/5368
  10. http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Library_submissions
  11. http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/WorkingConventions

     * How to create a Haskell project. Don Stewart and Ian Lynagh
       [12]prepared some guidelines on starting your own Haskell project.

  12. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/16164/focus=16164

Haskell'

   This section covers the [13]Haskell' standardisation process.
     * [14]Lambda-match vs PMC
     * [15]Indentation of If-Then-Else
     * [16]Digit groups

  13. http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime
  14. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.prime/1815/focus=1815
  15. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.prime/1791/focus=1791
  16. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.prime/1763/focus=1781

Discussion

     * Haskell Quiz/Ruby Quiz. Haskell Hackers [17]have started recording
       Ruby Quiz solutions on the Haskell wiki. Lots of fun puzzles are
       available, and its a useful resource if you're learning the
       language.

  17. http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell_Quiz

     * Infinite, open, statically constrained HLists. Oleg Kiselyov
       [18]described heterogeneous sequences that admit infinite
       sequences and permits post-hoc addition of new elements, even to
       an already infinite sequence.

  18. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/14424

     * Lexically scoped type variables: new proposal. Ben Rudiak-Gould
       [19]made a new for scoped type variables.

  19. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/14429

     * Simple GADT parser for the eval example. Greg Buchholz [20]sought
       advice on creating evaluators with GADTs

  20. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/16178/focus=16178

     * Package mounting. Frederik Eaton [21]proposed an alternative
       [22]design for package mounting extensions to the package system.

  21. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.libraries/5389
  22. http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/PackageMounting

     * Function types as instances of Num. Greg Buchholz [23]had an
       interesting problem using functions as instances of Num

  23. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/16129/focus=16129

     * Yhc Core file generation. Neil Mitchell [24]suggested that it was
       time to start taking YHC Core output a bit more seriously, and
       made some proposals.

  24. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.yhc/397/focus=397

     * Parallelism in GHC 6.6 and seq vs. pseq. Simon Marlow [25]noticed
       that Control.Parallel exports seq when in fact it should probably
       export pseq.

  25. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.glasgow.user/11093

Jobs

     * Lectureships in Software Engineering. Jeremy Gibbons [26]announced
       that applications are invited for three new University
       Lectureships in Software Engineering, at the University of Oxford.
       For further information, including full details of the application
       procedure and selection criteria, see [27]here.

  26. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/14445
  27. http://www.softeng.ox.ac.uk/jobs/

Blog noise

   [28]Haskell news from the blogosphere.
     * [29]Developing Gnome Apps with Glade
     * [30]The Fun of Functional Infrastructure
     * [31]Lightweight Threads
     * [32]Fold diagrams
     * [33]Haskell and Scheme: Which One and Why?
     * [34]Scheme Death Knell?
     * [35]Software Cipher
     * [36]Algebraic Topology in Haskell
     * [37]Syntax extension for Monads in Ocaml
     * [38]The wxhaskell revival
     * [39]Query Composition using Functional Programming Techniques in C# 3.0
     * [40]Practical Haskell?
     * [41]FP publisher interview
     * [42]Haskell mentions at the Dynamic Languages Symposium
     * [43]Phil Wadler (aka Lambda Man) at OOPSLA
     * [44]Haskell programming
     * [45]RushCheck, a lightweight random testing tool for Ruby similar to QuickCheck

  28. http://planet.haskell.org/
  29. http://j-van-thiel.speedlinq.nl/EddyAhmed/GladeGtk2Hs.html
  30. http://blog.syntaxpolice.org/isaac/index.cgi/technology/onInfrastructure.html
  31. http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1721#comment-21046
  32. http://cale.yi.org/index.php/Fold_Diagrams
  33. http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/10/haskell_and_scheme_which_one_a.php
  34. http://theonlywinningmove.blogspot.com/2006/10/scheme-death-knell.html
  35. http://mult.ifario.us/articles/2006/10/25/solitaire-cipher-in-haskell
  36. http://sigfpe.blogspot.com/2006/08/algebraic-topology-in-haskell.html
  37. http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~carette/pa_monad/
  38. http://koweycode.blogspot.com/2006/10/wxhaskell-on-darcshaskellorg.html
  39. http://blogs.msdn.com/ericwhite/pages/FP-Tutorial.aspx
  40. http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1803#comment-21779
  41. http://on-ruby.blogspot.com/2006/10/author-interview-joshua-smith-prequel.html
  42. http://mark.santaniello.net/archives/272
  43. http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2006-10.html#e2006-10-28T19_36_31.htm
  44. http://ste.aeschbacher.ch/blog/2006/04/entry1
  45. http://rushcheck.rubyforge.org/

Quotes of the Week

     * Simon Marlow: In fact, you don't need an evil scheduler, an
       ordinary scheduler will do this.

     * Conor McBride: My operating hypothesis is that even ordinary
       schedulers are evil...

     * Larry Wall: Continuations - if you know what they are - I don't
       need to explain them. If you don't know what they are - you don't
       want to know.

     * Cale: [discussing names for Haskell, after suggesting Sapphire]
       Diamond: The Hardest Programming Language on Earth

     * ConorMcBride: So, taking Void to be the colour of the empty
       bikeshed ...

     * cjeris: I like how you conveniently gloss over the part where your
       head explodes.

     * dons: C++: Creating blub programmers since 1985

     * mwc: I can only believe that Java is a conspiracy perpetrated by
       keyboard manufacturers

     * Pseudonym: (:[]) looks like a ninja robot pirate monkey

     * chessguy: We've got satan and beelsebob in here, and talking about
       unicycling.... this channel is guaranteed to be a bad influence on
       me now

     * dons: fold (\water dish -> wash water dish) soapywater dishes

     * masklinn: Scheme, on the other hand, is dynamically compiled and
       thus doesn't 'fail early', it fails as late as it can, which
       produces weird error unless you're into testing. Beginners never
       are into testing.

     * Riastradh: Assume that I haven't the faintest idea of what a
       comonad is, beyond that if a monad goes `voob', then a comonad
       goes `boov'

     * Anonymous: It is quite possible that 'the ultimate teaching
       language' was not actually invented when Steele and Sussman came
       down from the mountain bearing a spool of 9-track magtape...

     * sigfpe: How can Haskell not be the programming language that all
       mathematicians should learn?

     * Syzygy: > let _'__'_'''_'__'_=2 in _'__'_'''_'__'_

     * ihope>: > let _' __ ___ (____:_____) = __ ____ (_' __ ___ _____);
                     _' _ __ [] = __ in _' (+) 0

     * Syzygy: one thing that stands out is the relatively low distance
       between thought expressed in my ordinary day-to-day mathematical
       discourse, and thought expressed in Haskell code

Code Watch

     * Tue Oct 24 14:29:07 PDT 2006. Andy Gill. Haskell Program Coverage.
       This large checkin is the new ghc version of Haskell Program
       Coverage, an expression-level coverage tool for Haskell. You can
       run the coverage tool with -fhpc at compile time. Main must be
       compiled with -fhpc.

     * Tue Oct 24 02:13:57 PDT 2006. Simon Marlow. Split GC.c, and move
       storage manager into sm/ directory. In preparation for parallel
       GC, split up the monolithic GC.c file into smaller part

About the Haskell Weekly News

   Each week, new editions are posted to [46]the Haskell mailing list as
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