[Haskell] Haskell Weekly News: May 07, 2007

Donald Bruce Stewart dons at cse.unsw.edu.au
Mon May 7 01:53:24 EDT 2007


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Haskell Weekly News
http://sequence.complete.org/hwn/20070507
Issue 62 - May 07, 2007
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Welcome to issue 62 of HWN, a weekly newsletter covering developments
   in the [1]Haskell community.

   This week sees the release of Atom, a hardware description language
   embedded in Haskell, along with the usual suite of new libraries and
   tools. In addition, The Monad.Reader Issue 7 was released, and the
   hackage upload festival continues unabated.

   1. http://haskell.org/

Announcements

   Atom: Hardware Description in Haskell. Tom Hawkins [2]announced the
   release of [3]Atom, a high-level hardware description language
   embedded in Haskell, compiles conditional term rewriting systems into
   conventional HDL.

   2. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/15209
   3. http://www.funhdl.org/

   The Monad.Reader: Issue 7. Wouter Swierstra [4]announced the latest
   issue of [5]The Monad.Reader. The Monad.Reader is a quarterly magazine
   about functional programming. It is less-formal than journal, but
   somehow more enduring than a wiki page or blog post.

   4. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/22038
   5. http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/The_Monad.Reader

   HDBC: Haskell Database Connectivity. John Goerzon [6]announced that
   [7]HDBC 1.1.2 is now released. HDBC provides an abstraction layer
   between Haskell programs and SQL relational databases. This lets you
   write database code once, in Haskell, and have it work with any number
   of backend SQL databases.

   6. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/15227
   7. http://software.complete.org/hdbc

   FileManip: Expressive Filesystem Manipulation. Bryan O'Sullivan
   [8]announced the [9]FileManip package provides expressive functions
   and combinators for searching, matching, and manipulating files.

   8. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/22090
   9. http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/FileManip-0.1

   photoname: manipulate photos using EXIF data. Dino Morelli
   [10]announced the release of [11]photoname, a command-line utility for
   renaming and moving photo image files. The new folder location and
   naming are determined by two things: the photo shoot date information
   contained within the file's EXIF tags and the usually-camera-assigned
   serial number, often appearing in the filename.

  10. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/15187
  11. http://ui3.info/d/proj/photoname.html

   RSA-Haskell: Command-line Cryptography. David Sankel [12]announced the
   release of [13]RSA-Haskell, a collection of command-line cryptography
   tools and a cryptography library written in Haskell. It is intended to
   be useful to anyone who wants to secure files or communications or who
   wants to incorporate cryptography in their Haskell application.

  12. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/15207
  13. http://www.netsuperbrain.com/rsa-haskell.html

   Haskell modes for Vim. Claus Reinke [14]summarised the various
   Haskell/Vim support currently available

  14. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/15180

   French Translation of Gentle Introduction to H98. The haskell-fr team
   [15]announced a completed a [16]translation into French of the 'Gentle
   Introduction to Haskell'.

  15. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/15193
  16. http://gorgonite.developpez.com/livres/traductions/haskell/gentle-haskell/

Haskell'

   This section covers the [17]Haskell' standardisation process.

     * [18]Polymorphic strict fields

  17. http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime
  18. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.prime/2192

Hackage

   This week's new libraries in [19]the Hackage library database.

  19. http://hackage.haskell.org/

     * BitSyntax-0.2. Adam Langley. [20]A simple function for the
       construction of binary data.

  20. http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/BitSyntax-0.2

     * filepath-1.0. Neil Mitchell. [21]Library for manipulating
       FilePath's in a cross platform way.

  21. http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/filepath-1.0

     * Chart-2007.3.5. Tim Docker [22]A library for generating 2D Charts
       and Plots.

  22. http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/Chart-2007.3.5

     * FileManip-0.1. Bryan O'Sullivan [23]A Haskell library for working
       with files and directories.

  23. http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/FileManip-0.1

     * hsns-0.5.2. Austin Seipp [24]A network sniffer written in a purely
       fun language.

  24. http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/hsns-0.5.2

     * template-0.1. Johan Tibell [25]Simple string substitution library
       that supports dollar-based substitution.

  25. http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/template-0.1

     * ASN1-0.0.1. Dominic Steinitz [26]ASN.1 suppport for X.509 identity
       and attribute certificates, PKCS8, PKCS1v15.

  26. http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/ASN1-0.0.1

Discussion

   The Proper Definition of (evaluate :: a -> IO a). Isaac Dupree
   [27]described a variant of evaluate with modified semantics to the
   current implementation.

  27. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.libraries/6858

   Why is Data.Set not a monad?. Dan Doel [28]documented the reasons why
   Data.Set is not currently an instance of Monad.

  28. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.libraries/6861

   Chaos. Andrew Coppin [29]announced chaos, a fun image generating
   mystery program.

  29. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/22177

   The Functional Pearls. Don Stewart [30]collected the functional pearls
   known to be available online, on to a single page on the Haskell wiki.

  30. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cafe/22171

Blog noise

   [31]Haskell news from the blogosphere.

     * [32]HUG: Nested Data Parallelism in Haskell
     * [33]HUG: London Haskell User Group
     * [34]New York Functional Programmers meeting: roundup
     * [35]Python-style string split in Haskell
     * [36]Thinking in types
     * [37]Using the Haskell package system
     * [38]Fixed precision, an update
     * [39]Use of Text.XHtml.Strict for Outputting XHTML
     * [40]Idiom: Plan for Currying
     * [41]Bowling in Haskell
     * [42]The Trivial Monad
     * [43]Homeland Security Threat Level Monad
     * [44]Monads as universe helpers
     * [45]Understanding comonads
     * [46]Coding in Haskell: conciseness
     * [47]Functional programming in Wall Street
     * [48]Phantom Types for Real Problems
     * [49]Haskell rocks
     * [50]Advertising the ICFP Programming Contest
     * [51]Haskell wikibook
     * [52]Roll Your Own Window Manager: Part 1: Defining and Testing a Model
     * [53]Haskell and the Type Calculus: or, the Good -> Bad -> Ugliness of Types
     * [54]FileManip, an expressive Haskell library for manipulating files
     * [55]Programming in Haskell
     * [56]Parsing JSON in Haskell
     * [57]Namespace confusion
     * [58]A Scheme parser in Haskell
     * [59]Simple performance analysis
     * [60]Playing with Haskell unsafely
     * [61]repeat and sequence
     * [62]Haskell and C: functions returning more than one value

  31. http://planet.haskell.org/
  32. http://www.londonhug.net/2007/05/01/hug-update-nested-data-parallelism-in-haskell/
  33. http://www.phildawes.net/blog/2007/05/02/london-haskell-user-group/
  34. http://privosoft.blogspot.com/2007/05/new-york-functional-programmers-meeting.html
  35. http://gimbo.org.uk/blog/2007/04/20/splitting-a-string-in-haskell/
  36. http://totherme.livejournal.com/3845.html
  37. http://gimbo.org.uk/blog/2007/04/27/haskell-packages-gotcha-global-vs-per-user-package-databases/
  38. http://augustss.blogspot.com/2007/04/fixed-precision-update-so-i-was-bit.html
  39. http://www.movethemarkets.com/richard/2007/04/14/use-of-textxhtmlstrict-for-outputting-xhtml/
  40. http://www.movethemarkets.com/richard/2007/04/28/functional-programming-idiom-plan-for-currying/
  41. http://www.randomhacks.net/articles/2007/04/28/bowling-in-haskell
  42. http://sigfpe.blogspot.com/2007/04/trivial-monad.html
  43. http://sigfpe.blogspot.com/2007/04/homeland-security-threat-level-monad.html
  44. http://gelisam.blogspot.com/2006/10/monads-as-universe-helpers.html
  45. http://gelisam.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-understand-comonads.html
  46. http://defowl.blogspot.com/2007/04/coding-in-haskell.html
  47. http://codemiscellany.blogspot.com/2007/04/functional-programming-in-wall-street.html
  48. http://neilmitchell.blogspot.com/2007/04/phantom-types-for-real-problems.html
  49. http://errantember.livejournal.com/50627.html
  50. http://johanjeuring.blogspot.com/2007/05/advertising-icfp-programming-contest.html
  51. http://koweycode.blogspot.com/2007/05/haskell-wikibook-now-featured.html
  52. http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/blog/2007/05/01#xmonad_part1_model
  53. http://disparatemathematician.blogspot.com/2007/05/haskell-and-type-calculus-or-good-bad.html
  54. http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2007/05/01/filemanip-an-expressive-haskell-library-for-manipulating-files/
  55. http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/05/03/programming_haskell/
  56. http://notes-on-haskell.blogspot.com/2007/05/parsing-json.html
  57. http://notes-on-haskell.blogspot.com/2007/05/namespaces-confusion.html
  58. http://sami.samhuri.net/articles/2007/05/03/a-scheme-parser-in-haskell-part-1
  59. http://syntaxfree.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/lra/
  60. http://therning.org/magnus/archives/249
  61. http://therning.org/magnus/archives/269
  62. http://therning.org/magnus/archives/280

Quotes of the Week

     * Oleg K: So, `bind' is `let' and monadic programming is equivalent
       to programming in the A-normal form. That is indeed all there is
       to monads

     * kc5tja: Premature evil is the root of all optimization

     * Tommah: Remember, kids: if you program in a language with side
       effects, the terrorists win.

     * ndm: Comments are for people who can't sense what their code does
       from the indentation

     * jcreigh: GHC has lots of interesting features above Haskell98,
       I've noticed. 'You can take the red pill or the blue pill...'
       'Hmm. What's the green pill?' 'What? Oh. That's GHC.'

     * schluehk: It's about a variant of the other big Haskell credo:
       once it compiles it works. Once you have written a prototype you
       have also a spec. If this is not agile I don't know what? It is a
       quite remarkable inversion. Formerly people wanted tools that are
       so versatile that they let them express almost everything with
       great ease and where they didn't care a lot about speed
       optimizations and corner cases in the early iterations. Now people
       want tools that restricts intentionally their expressivity to let
       them do big upfront design as source code. They want to be guided
       to initial perfection. Let's face it: Haskell has quite some
       momentum in the dialectic move.

Code Watch

   Notable new features and bug fixes to the Haskell compilers.

   Thu May 3 06:19:55 PDT 2007. Simon Marlow. [63]Add history/trace
   functionality to the GHCi debugger. The debugger can now log each step
   of the evaluation without actually stopping, keeping a history of the
   recent steps (currently 50). When a (real) breakpoint is hit, you can
   examine previous steps in the history (and their free variables) using
   the :history, :back and :forward commands.

  63. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cvs.ghc/20551

   Wed May 2 09:34:57 PDT 2007. Simon Peyton-Jones. [64]Make records work
   properly with type families. This fixes Trac #1204. There's quite a
   delicate interaction of GADTs, type families, records, and in
   particular record updates.

  64. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.cvs.ghc/20522

About the Haskell Weekly News

   Each week, new editions are posted to [65]the Haskell mailing list as
   well as to [66]the Haskell Sequence and [67]Planet Haskell. [68]RSS is
   also available, and headlines appear on [69]haskell.org. Headlines are
   available as [70]PDF.

   To help create new editions of this newsletter, please see the
   [71]contributing information. Send stories to dons at cse.unsw.edu.au.
   The darcs repository is available at darcs get
   [72]http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/code/hwn

  65. http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
  66. http://sequence.complete.org/
  67. http://planet.haskell.org/
  68. http://sequence.complete.org/node/feed
  69. http://haskell.org/
  70. http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/code/hwn/archives/20070507.pdf
  71. http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/HWN
  72. http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/code/hwn


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