- Haskell-Cafe - Haskell.org

instance Monoid a => Monad ((,) a)
by Benjamin Franksen 06 Aug '19

06 Aug '19

I wanted to define a simple Monad instance for (Bool,) as instance Monad ((,) Bool) where return x = (False, x) (True, x) >>= k = (True, snd (k x)) (False, x) >>= k = k x -- or: (b, x) >>= k = let (c, y) = k x in (b||c, y) The idea was to keep track of whether functions change their input value or not. To my astonishment I found that this definition overlaps with an existing one. GHC tells me x.hs:2:10: error: • No instance for (Monoid Bool) arising from the superclasses of an instance declaration • In the instance declaration for ‘Monad ((,) Bool)’ | 2 | instance Monad ((,) Bool) where | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ x.hs:2:10: error: • Overlapping instances for Monad ((,) Bool) arising from a use of ‘GHC.Base.$dm>>’ Matching instances: instance Monoid a => Monad ((,) a) -- Defined in ‘GHC.Base’ instance Monad ((,) Bool) -- Defined at x.hs:2:10 • In the expression: GHC.Base.$dm>> @((,) Bool) In an equation for ‘>>’: (>>) = GHC.Base.$dm>> @((,) Bool) In the instance declaration for ‘Monad ((,) Bool)’ | 2 | instance Monad ((,) Bool) where | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [one more similar overlap error elided] But I could not find the instance Monoid a => Monad ((,) a) documented anywhere in the base package. Should I look harder? Or is this instance accidentally leaking from GHC.Base? Eventually, through some experimenting I found that if I replace Bool with Any, then the existing instance seems to do what I want. Cheers Ben

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Performance best practices
by Todd Wilson 04 Aug '19

04 Aug '19

Dear Cafe: I'm getting to the point in my Haskell learning curve where I'm getting more interested in the fine points of programming for performance and would be grateful for some ideas of the tools and options available for exploring this. To make this concrete, let me give a simple example. Here are two different ways of coding the same list-splitting function: import Data.List (inits,tails) splits1, splits2 :: [a] -> [([a],[a])] splits1 xs = zip (inits xs) (tails xs) splits2 [] = [([],[])] splits2 xs@(x:xs') = ([],xs) : [(x:as,bs) | (as,bs) <- splits2 xs'] For example, splits1 [1,2,3] is [([],[1,2,3]),([1],[2,3]),([1,2],[3]),([1,2,3],[])]. How do these functions compare in their actual time and space usage? It seems that, asymptotically, tails is O(n) while inits is O(n^2) in both time and space (when fully evaluated), and splits2 is also O(n^2), but how would I go about comparing them in actual usage to get a more precise comparison? What profiling or run-time statistics could I gather to make a decision about which one to use in a situation where performance mattered (assuming for the sake of discussion that such a situation existed for this simple example)? And, out of curiosity, is there an even more efficient way to code this function? Thanks, Todd Wilson

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ANN: To Kata Haskellen Evangelion
by Cosmia Fu 02 Aug '19

02 Aug '19

Hi everyone, Though some of you might already knows, I'm pleased to announce a new Haskell book, *To Kata Haskellen Evangelion*. Link: https://cosmius.bitbucket.io/tkhe/ I believe that it does not have to be hard to learn Haskell. I begun to write the book in 2017 December, and... to be honest, I don't know what to write now, though I still think it incomplete. It will probably not be updated for quite a while. So I decide to announce it earlier. I am not a native English speaker, so it might be not fluent or even with a lot of grammar mistakes. It would be very nice of you if you can tell me the mistakes in it, factual, technical or grammar. And also feel free to tell me if you want to read some topic in it. Thank you ---- Cosmia Fu

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Request for Comments
by ibrahim Sagiroglu 01 Aug '19

01 Aug '19

Hello all, I have an attempt to present llvm assembly in [1]. Would you consider taking some time to comment on it? [1] https://github.com/ibrahimsag/rw

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] ANN: To Kata Haskellen Evangelion
by Olaf Klinke 01 Aug '19

01 Aug '19

Isn't the Eq vs Ord problem similar to all sub-classes, e.g. Applicative vs. Monad, Semigroup vs. Monoid, Foldable vs. Traversable? What is the recommended way of coding? The Traversable module for example has default implementations of fmap and foldMap, as Functor and Foldable are superclasses. This suggests it is okay to define the subclass method first and derive the superclass methods from them. But arguments have been put up against this practice in particular cases, e.g. for AMP [1]. Olaf [1] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2019-July/131259.html

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RfA: wcwidth
by Jason Dusek 31 Jul '19

31 Jul '19

Hi All, This is a Request for Adoption for WCWidth, a low traffic package that provides the functionality of wcwidth(3) <http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/wcwidth.3.html>: “The wcwidth() function returns the number of columns needed to represent the wide character c.” https://github.com/solidsnack/wcwidth/ Although there have been just 3 issues and 2 PRs in 10 years, that’s still indicative of a need for maintenance and life has drawn me away from these avocations. A contributor suggested I reach out with an RfA. Hopefully, the community can be better served with a new maintainer. Kind Regards, Jason

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Call for Participation: Summer BOB 2019 (August 21, Berlin)
by Stefan Wehr 31 Jul '19

31 Jul '19

Here's a quick reminder on the upcoming BOB conference, happening at the third day of ICFP at the same venue. For those going to ICFP anyway: your ticket also gives you access to all BOB talks. For those not going to ICFP: come to BOB conference and also get access to the ICFP talks of day 3! ======================================================================== Summer BOB 2019 Conference “What happens if we simply use what’s best?” August 21, 2019, Berlin co-located with ICFP 2019 http://bobkonf.de/2019-summer/ Program: http://bobkonf.de/2019-summer/program.html Registration: http://bobkonf.de/2019-summer/registration.html ======================================================================== Are you interested in technologies beyond the mainstream, that are a pleasure to use, and effective at getting the job done? BOB is the forum for developers, architects and builders to explore and discover the best tools available today for building software. Our goal is for all participants to leave the conference with new ideas to improve development back at the ranch. Summer BOB is a one-time-only event, in the spirit of the spectacular Winter BOB. The International Conference on Functional Programming is coming to town, and Summer BOB will be right in the middle of it, on the last day of ICFP proper, prior to all the workshops. Summer BOB will feature two tracks: one from practitioners, and one from researchers, and foster communication and cross-pollination between these communities. BOB features two tracks of seven talk each: One research track with invited talks, and one track by practitioners, designed to cross-pollinate and inspire.http://bobkonf.de/2019-summer/program.html Topics include distributed programming, testing, linear algebra, functional design patterns, type systems, formal methods, and interactive development. We are committed to diversity: We aim at exploring a wide range of tools in a welcoming and friendly crowd of diverse people. To that end, a number of support options for participants from groups under-represented in tech are available.http://bobkonf.de/2019-summer/registration.html

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] type variable is ambiguous in a non-injective type family
by Anthony Clayden 30 Jul '19

30 Jul '19

Anthony> I am interested in how you got into such a pickle in the first place: Anthony> Why set `AllowAmbiguousTypes`? Did you understand what that means? ----------------------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >I read > > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49684655/how-dangerous-is-allowambiguou… > > > which seems to indicate that using it is "a perfectly reasonable thing" Hmm, I don't think that's how you got into the pickle. That SO answer (and there are plenty on the subject) says the "combination" of `AllowAmbiguousTypes` + `TypeApplications` is reasonable. But your first post had `AllowAmbiguousTypes` without `TypeApplications`. That is not "a perfectly reasonable thing"; no SO answer says it is. If you had already looked at that SO answer, how did you not use `TypeApplications`? Let me suggest how you got into the pickle, because there is a repeated experience here which is poor for learners: You wrote the method signature for `toBool`. That's ambiguous. GHC gave you an error message suggesting `AllowAmbiguousTypes` might get the method signature to compile -- which it did. `AllowAmbiguousTypes` works at the declaration site, not the usage site. Which is why: * It doesn't make sense to switch it on everywhere -- as one of the SO comments suggests. * It does need you to take action at the usage site, but GHC's message doesn't tell you that. * So your first post showed more `ambiguous` rejections at the usage site. * What's more there was a red herring about non-injective type families. * And to fix it per Li-yao's suggestion needs a whole bunch more extensions, * including the deeply flawed `ScopedTypeVariables`, * when the simpler `PatternSignatures` would be more appropriate -- except that's now deprecated. * `AllowAMbiguousTypes` is module-wide: that means you get no validation of any of your method sigs; although probably you mean only a few of the to be ambiguous. * Then any/every usage site for any method might turn out to be ambiguous. IMO GHC has got itself into a total mess in this bit of the language, and the error messages lead learners rapidly into deep water. I think `AllowAmbiguousTypes` might as well be spelled `AllhopeAbandonTypes`. Those other extensions might be the best approach for your full requirements, but might not. So as to other possible designs: * I didn't want to get into the FunDeps vs TypeFamilies war. * If method `toBool` is only going to be called on the result of `toSubAmbi`, I would go > toBool :: a -> Bool -- not ambiguous > > instance Ambi blah where > type SubAmbi blah = ... > toSubAmbi x = ... > toBool x = case toSubAmbi x of { ... -> True; _ -> False } Then in your `whatsWrong` function, call only `toBool`. So the instances are a little more verbose but the usage sites are more succinct and don't need all those extensions. AntC

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] type variable is ambiguous in a non-injective type family
by Henry Laxen 29 Jul '19

29 Jul '19

First, thank you Li-yao Xia for your clear and helpful response. I was able to continue thanks to you. Thanks for the question Anthony, I look forward to learning something. I hope I'll be explain this clearly. I am writing some games, which can share some code, such as logging in, and broadcasting messages to players. I started by writing just one game, with no consideration for how and what to share. This let to a gamestate which contained things like: newtype GameId = GameId Int data Game1 { _game1TimeStarted :: UTCTime, _game1PlayerId :: GameId, ... _game1RandomGen :: StdGen, _game1Commands :: [Game1Command] } the actual state is a more complicated than this, because I split it into a Static part and a Mutable part that is in a TVar (Map GameId Game1MutableState) Next I start writing Game2, which I discover will do the same kind of broadcasting of messages (Commands) as Game1. So I would like to use the same code in Game2 as in Game1 that handles the broadcasting. I came up with: (this is part of the actual class I am using) class Game a where type Command a :: * type Mutable a :: * type Static a :: * toGameId :: a -> GameId toMutable :: a -> IO (Maybe (Mutable a)) everyone :: Mutable a -> [Sink] instance Game Game1State where type Command Game1State = Game1Command type Mutable Game1State = Game1Mutable type Static Game1State = Game1Static toGameId ss = ss ^. game1Static . game1GameId toMutable ss = do let tVar = ss ^. game1Mutable gId = toGameId ss gm <- liftIO (readTVarIO tVar) return $ M.lookup gId (unGameMap gm) everyone = mapMaybe _game1Sink . M.elems . _game1SPMap similarly, I make Game2State an instance of Game. Now in the code that broadcasts commands I have: sendBroadCasts :: (Show (Command a) , Game a) => [BroadCast a] -> a -> IO () ... sendOneCommand :: (Show (Command a) , Game a) => a -> BroadCastReceiver -> Command a -> IO () sendOneCommand ss BroadCastToEveryone command = do mbMut <- toMutable ss case mbMut of Nothing -> return () Just mut -> do let sinks = everyone mut mapM_ (`sendCommand` command) sinks but GHC scolds me with: src/Games/BroadCasts.hs:53:12-23: error: … • Couldn't match type ‘Mutable a’ with ‘Mutable a0’ Expected type: IO (Maybe (Mutable a0)) Actual type: IO (Maybe (Mutable a)) NB: ‘Mutable’ is a non-injective type family The type variable ‘a0’ is ambiguous • In a stmt of a 'do' block: mbMut <- toMutable ss In the expression: ... After incorporating Li-yao Xia's suggestion, the code becomes: sendOneCommand :: forall a. (Show (Command a) , Game a) => ----------------- ^^^^^^^^^ this is added a -> BroadCastReceiver -> Command a -> IO () sendOneCommand _ (BroadCastToSome sinks) command = mapM_ (`sendCommand` command) sinks sendOneCommand ss BroadCastToEveryone command = do mbMut <- toMutable ss case mbMut of Nothing -> return () Just mut -> do let sinks = everyone @a mut -------------------------- ^^ this is added mapM_ (`sendCommand` command) sinks and GHC is happy. I hope I have explained this sufficiently clearly. I look forward to your insights. Best wishes, Henry Laxen >>>>> "Anthony" == Anthony Clayden <anthony_clayden(a)clear.net.nz> writes: Anthony> Hi Henry, both replies you've received are excellent, I won't expand on them. Anthony> I am interested in how you got into such a pickle in the first place: Anthony> Why set `AllowAmbiguousTypes`? Did you understand what that means? ----------------------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I read https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49684655/how-dangerous-is-allowambiguou… which seems to indicate that using it is "a perfectly reasonable thing" Anthony> Did you think it odd that despite having that set, you get error Anthony> `type variable ... is ambiguous`? Anthony> There are ways to achieve what you want without Anthony> `AllowAmbiguousTypes` nor `TypeApplications`, but that would need Anthony> a rather different design. So what lead you into this design? Anthony> AntC -- Nadine and Henry Laxen The rest is silence Villa Alta #6 Calle Gaviota #10 Never try to teach a pig to sing Chapala It wastes your time +52 (376) 765-3181 And it annoys the pig

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] type variable is ambiguous in a non-injective type family
by Anthony Clayden 29 Jul '19

29 Jul '19

> I really don't understand what is going on here. ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > {-# LANGUAGE TypeFamilies #-} > {-# LANGUAGE AllowAmbiguousTypes #-} > {- > > src/Games/Ambiguous.hs:15:16: error: … > • Couldn't match expected type ‘SubAmbi a0’ > with actual type ‘SubAmbi a’ > NB: ‘SubAmbi’ is a non-injective type family > The type variable ‘a0’ is ambiguous > > -} Hi Henry, both replies you've received are excellent, I won't expand on them. I am interested in how you got into such a pickle in the first place: Why set `AllowAmbiguousTypes`? Did you understand what that means? Did you think it odd that despite having that set, you get error `type variable ... is ambiguous`? There are ways to achieve what you want without `AllowAmbiguousTypes` nor `TypeApplications`, but that would need a rather different design. So what lead you into this design? AntC

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