November 2018 - Haskell-Cafe

Is there some way to hack the type system without recompiling GHC?
by ducis 29 Nov '18

29 Nov '18

We know that the type system is now a second language where you spec formal requirements and let the compiler solve it, kinda like logic programming. But sometimes I knew something is correct or at least willing to take the risk of runtime errors, but the typechecker is not (yet) able to figure it out. In this case is it possible to somehow insert (regular haskell) code into the typechecker and force the compiler to think some values are of some types, rather than waiting for or inventing some formally correct solution, which may be fundamentally very difficult?

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Tidal (musical pattern library) refactor - feedback appreciated
by Alex McLean 28 Nov '18

28 Nov '18

https://slab.org/tidal-1-0-0-refactor/ -- blog: http://slab.org/

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XText vs DSL in Haskell in mission critical software
by Puck 28 Nov '18

28 Nov '18

Hello all, how can I convince my bosses to use existing functional languages for specifying the future embedded softwares from the company instead of using Xtext or other things that firm under the name "model driven development". The softwares are mission critical. A local cooperation is already building an research institute with the goal of "model driven development". Why they do not use plain Haskell, LiquidHaskell and Coq? Neither can I imagine, that Haskell or Coq is so hard to learn, neither can I imagine that they want the developers to dive through handwritten Java extensions for their tool, that can only be analyzed with Java-tools and cannot be proven. Is XText, for example, really so good? Is a Haskell-DSL as a counterpart, not very much fewer dependent on other things, and very much easier to maintain? Thanks for suggestions and arguments Puck

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] XText vs DSL in Haskell in mission critical software
by Johannes Waldmann 27 Nov '18

27 Nov '18

> how can I convince my bosses to use existing functional languages You don't. Instead you have a coffee and read about bosses and software at dilbert.com and hackernews. While the browser refreshes the page, you write a compiler from xtext (or whatever the current buzzword is) to Haskell and back. - J.W.

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haddock (on hackage/stackage) missing references to external libraries
by Johannes Waldmann 27 Nov '18

27 Nov '18

Dear Cafe, it seems that haddock (as used on hackage) does not link to identifiers from other packages (neither in HTML nor in hyperlinked source). This hurts, especially if a project has several packages that are meant to be used together, but are split for others reasons (modularity, maintenance). Example: This index has an entry for "bpf", with a non-linked module name Csound.Base: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/csound-expression-5.3.2/docs/doc-index-… The reason is (I think) that "bpf" is defined elsewhere, but re-exported, and "elsewhere" is in a different package. It is very hard to find the name of this package! (in this case, csound-expression-opcodes) Of course, in no way is this a complaint about Anton's csound-* project. I use it in teaching, and I wonder how could we make documentation more accessible - without extra manual work. Now, :doc of ghc-8.6 works, and :info helps somewhat: :info bpf ... -- Defined in ‘Csound.Typed.Opcode.SignalGenerators’ but it still does not show the name of the package. But at least we know the name of the module to look for. - J.W.

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how to cabal-install so that :doc works?
by Johannes Waldmann 27 Nov '18

27 Nov '18

Dear Cafe - what do I have to put in my global .cabal/config in order to make ghci's new :doc command https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/latest/docs/html/users_guide/ghci.html#g… work after "cabal install <foo>"? I thought "documentation: True" should do it but I am invariably getting this: GHCi, version 8.6.2: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ :? for help Prelude> import Ersatz Prelude Ersatz> :doc solveWith ghc: Can't find any documentation for Ersatz.Solver. This is probably because the module was compiled without '-haddock', but it's also possible that the module contains no documentation. I do have the .cabal/share/doc/x86_64-linux-ghc-8.6.2/ersatz-0.4.4/html directory. The :doc command seems to work for the libraries that come with ghc (documentation in /opt/ghc/ghc-8.6.2/share/doc/ghc-8.6.2/html/ ) - J.W.

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Munich Haskell Meeting, 2018-11-28 @ 19:30
by Leah Neukirchen 27 Nov '18

27 Nov '18

Dear all, This week, our monthly Munich Haskell Meeting will take place again on Wednesday, November 28 at Cafe Puck at 19h30. For details see here: http://muenchen.haskell.bayern/dates.html If you plan to join, please add yourself to this dudle so we can reserve enough seats! It is OK to add yourself to the dudle anonymously or pseudonymously. https://dudle.inf.tu-dresden.de/haskell-munich-nov-2018/ Everybody is welcome! cu, -- Leah Neukirchen <leah(a)vuxu.org> http://leah.zone

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[Job] Cross Compass is currently hiring Haskell developers
by Ramin Honary 27 Nov '18

27 Nov '18

[Cross Compass](https://www.xcompass.com/en/) is a data science and machine learning consultancy located in Tokyo, Japan. Most of the work is focused on solving problems for clients by making creative use of their data. We currently have a small team of Haskellers working on a deep learning framework implemented in Haskell. We plan to use this framework multiple ways. For example, we have created a web platform for the manufacturing industry to make it easy to generate anomaly detection models for use in a factory. We are hiring Haskell programmers to help create this framework. We are mainly looking for people skilled in either web programming or machine learning. ### The ideal candidate would be similar to the following: - Passionate about functional programming, type-driven development, and modern artificial intelligence, especially deep learning. - Have experience with machine learning/deep learning, either professionally or academically. Be experienced with popular frameworks like Tensorflow, PyTorch, etc. - Have extensive Haskell experience. Be completely comfortable using (or learning) libraries like `lens`, `servant`, `singletons`, etc. Author of popular Haskell libraries. Worked on multiple large applications. - Have experience developing web apps using any of JavaScript, TypeScript, PureScript, Elm, GHCJS, and have created web apps using frameworks like Vue, Angular, React, Halogen, Reflex, or Miso. Ideally with a backend REST API implemented in Haskell. - Able to work full-time (40 hours a week) or **part-time** (20+ hours a week). - Willing to do freelance with us for a few weeks to make sure we are a good match for each other before becoming an permanent employee. - Able to work either on-site or **remote** - In the case of remote, you live in near Japan's timezone (UTC+9) and can fly to the office in Tokyo multiple times per year. (This requirement could be waived for strong candidates.) - Experience as a team-lead, chopping up and assigning tasks to less experienced Haskellers, reviewing PRs, etc. ## Flexible with job requirements We realize there are probably very few people that actually meet all these points. We are flexible, so please feel free to get in touch even if you don't think you meet our ideal requirements. It is possible for us to hire remotely, although we prefer people that are near Japan's timezone (UTC+9) and can fly to the office in Tokyo multiple times per year. We can also sponsor visas for people that want to move to Japan. As stated above, we are also open to applicants who want to do non-full-time work (20+ hours per week). Here are two examples of people we would love to talk to even though they don't meet all of the points above: ### Example 1: - Going to graduate school in Tokyo for machine learning. Very familiar with deep learning. - Beginning Haskeller. Have read through all of Haskell Programming From First Principles (and perhaps [Thinking with Types](https://leanpub.com/thinking-with-types)?) but has no experience working with large applications. - Able to come in to the office 20 to 25 hours a week. ### Example 2: - Living in Australia - Intimately familiar with Haskell, author of multiple popular libraries. - Very competent with web programming. - No experience with machine learning. - Multiple years of experience working remotely. - Able to work full-time. ## Some of the benefits of working at Cross Compass: - Work with passionate Haskellers. You may have seen us either here on [/r/haskell](https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell), or at conferences: - [Hideaki Kawai](https://github.com/kayhide) - [Viktor Kronvall](https://github.com/considerate) - [Ramin Honary](https://github.com/RaminHAL9001) - [Dennis Gosnell](https://functor.tokyo/) - We also work with [Tweag I/O](https://www.tweag.io). Their Haskellers are really top class. - Attend conferences like ICFP, Lambda Jam, etc. We each try to attend a couple conferences a year. - Training. We are planning to have the entire team take the [Guide to Haskell Performance and Optimization](https://www.well-typed.com/services_training_performance_and_… course from Well-Typed at some point. The lower end of the pay scale is 8 Million Yen (800万円) per year for full-time. I'm not sure what the higher end is. If this sounds interesting, please feel free to email us atrecruit-haskell(a)cross-compass.com, possibly with your resume and why you think we'd be good for each other. If you want to know more, we would love to take you out to lunch if you're located in Tokyo, or chat with you on Skype if not.

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Taking over a package bindings-librrd
by Alexandr Fedorov 26 Nov '18

26 Nov '18

Hello, this package looks abandoned and does not compile on the latest librrd library. Let me clarify this: if MasatakeDaimon can hear this letter, please add me to bindings-librrd maintainers list, i'd be more than happy to help and a taking over is not necessary, but if somehow he still doesn't show up, hackage administrator please consider either adding me as a maintainer, or let me take over this package.

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Help with DataKinds example
by Marc Busqué 24 Nov '18

24 Nov '18

I'm reading Sandy Maguire book Thinking with Types, and I'm stuck understanding an example about `DataKinds` language extension. In the book, it is said that it can be used to prevent at the type level that non admin users perform some action for which admin privileges are required. So, in the example, having `DataKinds` enabled, we define: ``` data UserType = User | Admin ``` Then, we change User type: ``` data User = User { userAdminToken :: Maybe (Proxy 'Admin) } ``` And then it is said that we can enforce that sensitive operations are performed by a user with the admin token: ``` doSensitiveThings :: Proxy 'Admin -> IO () ``` No other language extensions have been explained before in the book, and I simply don't understand how it is works... First, I guess that when writing `data User = ...` we are overriding `'User` promoted data constructor. Isn't it? Also, I don't understand how I could define a type `Proxy 'Admin`. If I'm not wrong, `Proxy` should have the kind `UserType -> *`, but I don't know how to do that. Besides that, I would like some guidance in the general idea of the example, because I'm quite puzzled :) Thanks in advance! Marc Busqué http://waiting-for-dev.github.io/about/

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