[Haskell] Haskell Weekly News: Issue 155 - October 20, 2010 (Originally posted to Haskell-Cafe)

Daniel Santa Cruz dstcruz at gmail.com
Thu Oct 21 11:53:10 EDT 2010 

Hello all,

Malcolm Wallace noticed that I had not posted the HWN to this list,
and requested that I do so.
I realize that many of you are also following -Cafe, and I do
apologize if this is a bit spamish due
to that.  Hopefully some of you will find this useful.

-Daniel

 Welcome to issue 155 of the HWN, a newsletter covering developments in
  the [1]Haskell community in the week of October 10 - 16.

  This time around we again have 87 posts to HackageDB. Instead of
  posting the individual packages, we get to see and celebrate the 43
  people behind these efforts.

  Want to keep a close eye on the haskellers that lurk twitter? Don
  Steward made [2]a twitter list of tweeting haskellers! Let him know if
  you'd like to be added to the list.

  There were a total of 24 new stories posted to the Haskell Reddit
  channel, 27 new questions taged with Haskell in StackOverflow, and 408
  messages posted to Haskell-Cafe.

  So, what was hot last week?

Announcements

  Gregory Crosswhite is pleased to [3]announce the release of a family of
  packages for type-level natural numbers. He also [4]announced
  tagged-list, a package which provides fixed-length lists that are
  tagged with a phantom type-level natural number corresponding to the
  length.

  Janis Voigtlander [5]announced that it is time to collect contributions
  for the 19th edition of the Haskell Communities & Activities Report.
  The submission deadline is November 1, 2010.

  Alexander Solla [6]announced his new "Facts" library. The Facts
  hierarchy is meant to contain commonly used, relatively static facts
  about the "real world."

  Kevin Jardine [7]announced polyToMonoid: a library that supplies two
  very general polyvariadic functions that can map their arguments into
  any monoid you specify.

  Simon Hengel [8]announced a new version of DocTest. DocTest now uses
  Haddock for parsing of comments.

Interesting Threads on Haskell-Cafe

  Michael Snoyman [9]reported that Haskellers.com has become popular a
  lot falter that he anticipated. Read up on what changes are planned for
  Haskellers.com. Michael is very interested in some help with running
  the site.

  Jacek Generowicz [10]asked how to deal with dynamic dispatch on
  extensible sets of types.

  Uwe Schmidt [11]replied to a question about why HXT uses arrows as
  opposed to using monads. Good comments followed.

  Jason Dusek [12]asked if there is a way to write a Haskell data
  structure that is necessarily only one or two or seventeen items long;
  but that is nonetheless statically guaranteed to be of finite length?
  Twenty-three messages followed.

  Simon Thompson [13]annouced the availability of books for review for
  the Journal of Functonial Programming.

  Andrew Copping [14]summarized a report produced by Google Szwitzerland
  on taking a Python system and rewriting bits of it in Haskell, some of
  which is now in production use.

  Ben Franksen [15]ranted about the current "Haskell Blurb" on the first
  paragraph of haskell.org. Quite the read to end the week :)

Top Reddit Stories

 * Using Haskell’s ‘newtype’ in C
   Domain: blog.nelhage.com
   Score: 37, Comments: 5
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/dptzh/using_haskells_newtype_in_c/
   Original: http://blog.nelhage.com/2010/10/using-haskells-newtype-in-c/

 * The Haskell theme: consistent visual branding for Haskell
   Domain: haskell.org
   Score: 34, Comments: 11
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/dqiej/the_haskell_theme_consistent_visual_branding_for/
   Original: http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2010-October/084781.html

 * Haskellers: Survey results and new site features
   Domain: haskellers.com
   Score: 22, Comments: 6
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/dr37b/haskellers_survey_results_and_new_site_features/
   Original: http://www.haskellers.com/news/1/

 * My Experience Learning Haskell
   Domain: blog.virtucal.com
   Score: 21, Comments: 6
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/drgcz/my_experience_learning_haskell/
   Original: http://blog.virtucal.com/cyclical/2010/10/14/my-experience-learning-haskell.html

 * Invertible monads for exception handling and memory allocations
   Domain: docs.yesodweb.com
   Score: 21, Comments: 0
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/drkdj/invertible_monads_for_exception_handling_and/
   Original: http://docs.yesodweb.com/blog/invertible-monads-exceptions-allocations/

 * Accelerating Haskell Array Codes with Multicore GPUs
   Domain: justtesting.org
   Score: 19, Comments: 0
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/dq1yo/accelerating_haskell_array_codes_with_multicore/
   Original: http://justtesting.org/accelerating-haskell-array-codes-with-multico

 * Unicode text performance improvements
   Domain: serpentine.com
   Score: 17, Comments: 1
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/drinz/unicode_text_performance_improvements/
   Original: http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2010/10/15/unicode-text-performance-improvements/

 * Like a coding challenge? Check out Code Quarterly!
   Domain: serpentine.com
   Score: 16, Comments: 9
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/dpjgv/like_a_coding_challenge_check_out_code_quarterly/
   Original: http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2010/10/11/like-a-coding-challenge-check-out-code-quarterly/

 * C9 Lecture: Ralf Lämmel on Monads
   Domain: channel9.msdn.com
   Score: 16, Comments: 0
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/dq614/c9_lecture_ralf_lämmel_on_monads/
   Original: http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/C9-Lectures-Dr-Ralf-Lmmel-AFP-The-Quick-Essence-of-Functional-Programming

 * Take the Haskellers.com survey
   Domain: spreadsheets.google.com
   Score: 15, Comments: 3
   On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/dq7xj/take_the_haskellerscom_survey/
   Original: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG8tcVhBdzRSS1lkdVV6U281emtRMWc6MQ

Top StackOverflow Questions

 * When is memoization automatic in GHC Haskell?
   Question (votes: 14, answers: 3)
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3951012/when-is-memoization-automatic-in-ghc-haskell

 * Why is my code using monadic lists from the List package so slow?
   Question (votes: 12, answers: 3)
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3916444/why-is-my-code-using-monadic-lists-from-the-list-package-so-slow

 * Haskell: lift vs liftIO
   Question (votes: 8, answers: 2)
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3921237/haskell-lift-vs-liftio

 * Can anyone suggest a good constraint library for Haskell?
   Question (votes: 8, answers: 2)
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3926656/can-anyone-suggest-a-good-constraint-library-for-haskell

 * Library function to compose a function with itself n times
   Question (votes: 6, answers: 4)
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3911060/library-function-to-compose-a-function-with-itself-n-times

 * Evaluation of a small math type language that supports one variable
   Question (votes: 5, answers: 1)
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3906231/evaluation-of-a-small-math-type-language-that-supports-one-variable

 * What's the difference of  a “class” in Haskell and in an “abstract
class” in OO language?
   Question (votes: 5, answers: 4)
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3938779/whats-the-difference-of-a-class-in-haskell-and-in-an-abstract-class-in-oo-l

 * Haskell and State
   Question (votes: 5, answers: 4)
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3944170/haskell-and-state

 * Can Haskell guard on abstract data types in a polymorphic function?
   Question (votes: 5, answers: 3)
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3944756/can-haskell-guard-on-abstract-data-types-in-a-polymorphic-function

 Quotes of the Week

  * pumpkin: sounds like a lot of work! it's easier for me to just
    bitch about it
  * OlegKiselyov: Haskell is inconsistent in yet another way.
  * monochrom: just add #! /usr/bin/runghc to your haskell file. then
    type errors occur at runtime only.
  * IIcke: [haskell] is like wearing a corset, at the beginning is
    annoying, but then your tits look bigger and the world becomes a
    better place

Contributors to HackageDB

  Who contributed, and how many uploads did they make?

  MichaelSnoyman (14), BryanOSullivan (11), GregoryCrosswhite (5),
  AndyStewart (5), GregoryCollins (4), JosePedroMagalhaes (3),
  StephenBlackheath (2), SjoerdVisscher (2), PaulTalaga (2), MichaelZuo (2),
  DanielDiaz (2), ConalElliott (2), AristidBreitkreuz (2),
  AlexanderSolla (2), YuriyIskra (1), VivianMcPhail (1), TristanSkudlik (1),
  TonyMorris (1), StephenTetley (1), SimonHengel (1), ReinierLamers (1),
  OlegBelozeorov (1), NeilMitchell (1), MaxBolingbroke (1),
  MatthiasBartsch (1), MatthewSottile (1), MasatakeDaimon (1),
  MarkSnyder (1), ManuelChakravarty (1), LeePike (1), KiYungAhn (1),
  KevinJardine (1), JustinBailey (1), IlyaPortnov (1), GeoffHulette (1),
  EugeneKirpichov (1), DonaldStewart (1), DanielSeidel (1), DanielSchoepe (1),
  CarlHowells (1), BenFranksen (1), ArieMiddelkoop (1), AlexSuraci (1)

About the Haskell Weekly News

  New editions are posted to [16]the Haskell mailing list as well as to
  [17]the Haskell Sequence and [18]Planet Haskell. [19]RSS is also
  available, and headlines appear on [20]haskell.org.

  To help create new editions of this newsletter, please send stories to
  dstcruz * at * gmail * dot * com. The code used to produce this version
  of the newsletter is not yet publicly available, as it is a complete
  hack designed to get things started again.

  Until next time,
  Daniel Santa Cruz

References

  1. http://haskell.org/
  2. http://twitter.com/#!/donsbot/haskellers
  3. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/c0071547638d7cb0
  4. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/ff95d6c78ded677f
  5. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/msg/d9d227b0f38bcf51
  6. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/fc86bd03d091c4bf
  7. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/4ba5741441d7bb33
  8. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/7982f0ad3bc9ce1d
  9. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/2440a1683fe3e739
 10. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/f0a05dd5b58dc3d2
 11. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/38185e7ba6509563/c6063929f39a7197?#c6063929f39a7197
 12. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/7ba4b3b0386fb3d6
 13. http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/sjt/JFP/available.html
 14. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/81707fea2b1568ee
 15. http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-cafe/browse_thread/thread/a7c7b569dd524934
 16. http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
 17. http://sequence.complete.org/
 18. http://planet.haskell.org/
 19. http://sequence.complete.org/node/feed
 20. http://haskell.org/

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