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Library documentation
by Konrad Hinsen 05 Sep '03

05 Sep '03

Is there any place where I can find an introductory documentation for the Haskell libraries? To be more concrete, say I am interested in using Data.Array.ST.STUArray. I would need some explanation of the ST monad, and then an explanation of how I can use an STUArray in an ST monad. Plus ideally examples. But the same applies to most of the libraries. I can't find any documentation other than the very terse reference or the parts that happen to be covered by textbooks. Konrad.

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RE: haskell reify, was sequencing data structures
by Simon Marlow 05 Sep '03

05 Sep '03

> I wonder whether keeping the names of data constructors in info tables > is expensive? > > I would have guessed not. (more debugging info such as > function names and src locations is likely to be more > expensive however). > > Anyway, would it be possible/feasible for GHC to keep names > in info tables > all the time, not just for profiling? At least for data-constructors? That's a distinct possibility. If you send patches we'll incorporate them. Cheers, Simon

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RE: haskell reify, was sequencing data structures
by Simon Marlow 05 Sep '03

05 Sep '03

> - There needs to be some support from the > compilers/interpreters. Hugs > already has this. Ghc has some of it, but I abuse the > profiling system > in order to get the names of constructors to be present > on the heap. > I'm not happy with this. Under normal compilation GHC > doesn't keep > constructor names around, as far as I know. However, the > new debugger > in GHC must do something to get names of things, so perhaps the > -prof hack is no longer needed? I believe the debugger that Robert Ennals is working on tries to infer constructor names from the symbol table of the binary. Personally, I'd like to see debugging info placed in a separate segment of the binary, so it won't be loaded with the code but can be used by a debugger. Cheers, Simon

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haskell html-colorizer
by henning＠ikso.net 04 Sep '03

04 Sep '03

Are anyone aware of a haskell html-colorizer a' la the emacs-mode? Regards /Henning

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Problem with Infinite Lists
by Wamberto Vasconcelos 03 Sep '03

03 Sep '03

Folks I am new in this forum, so apologies if this has been asked before. If this is the case, please point me to the direction of the answer and I won't bother you again! Also, could you make sure you CC your answers to me? I am not sure how long it takes for my subscription to be activated and I don't want to miss out on the action :-) The Problem I have defined this function to calculate the Fibonacci numbers: all_fib :: [Float] all_fib = 1:(1:(add_fib all_fib)) where add_fib (x:y:rs) = (x + y):(add_fib (y:rs)) Which seems to work: Main> take 20 all_fib [1.0,1.0,2.0,3.0,5.0,8.0,13.0,21.0,34.0,55.0,89.0,144.0,233.0,377.0, 610.0,987.0,1597.0,2584.0,4181.0,6765.0] However, when I tried Main> filter even (take 20 all_fib) ERROR - Illegal Haskell 98 class constraint in inferred type *** Expression : filter even (take 20 all_fib) *** Type : Integral Float => [Float] What is going on here? Thanks in advance for any help/hint. -- Wamberto Vasconcelos, PhD wvasconcelos(a)acm.org Department of Computing Science http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~wvasconc University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, Scotland, UK Phone +44 (0)1224 272283 Fax +44 (0)1224 273422

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Histograms
by Konrad Hinsen 03 Sep '03

03 Sep '03

How would one best (read: most efficiently) create a histogram in Haskell? More precisely, given a list of integers in a known range, I want a count of how often any given number occurs. In imperative languages this would be done by iterating over the list and updating the count for the element under consideration. Without updatable data structures, the most straightforward solution I can think of would start by sorting the list, but for a long list that is very inefficient. Any suggestions? Konrad.

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OT - Book on Programming
by Matthew Donadio 03 Sep '03

03 Sep '03

Hi all, This is a little off-topic, but I know there are a lot of people here with teaching experience. I am looking for a good book on programming. I recently picked up a gig doing ActionScript programming for a multimedia company. They have very good designers, but not very good programmers. So, they decided to hire a professional programmer to help them out with some of their projects. They have several people in the company who understand the mechanics of programming, but don't really understand the concepts. I am looking for a book to recommend to them. I would really like to find a book that just discusses programming, and avoids any one particular language. It would have to cover the common imperative controls, as well as basic data structures. Thanks. -- Matthew Donadio (m.p.donadio(a)ieee.org)

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RE: Help on Homework help
by Simon Peyton-Jones 03 Sep '03

03 Sep '03

Good write-up. One suggestion: it'd be good to suggest *strongly* that people only send their homework-style questions to Haskell-café, not to the main Haskell list. Given the existence of the fomer, using the latter is likely to irritate, which isn't likely to elicit helpful responses. I know I could make the change myself, but you'll do it better :-) Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: haskell-cafe-admin(a)haskell.org [mailto:haskell-cafe-admin@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Andrew | J Bromage | Sent: 03 September 2003 06:52 | To: haskell-cafe(a)haskell.org | Subject: Help on Homework help | | G'day all. | | In response to the recent poll, and because I promised to, here is a | first attempt at a page to direct people to, should they ask for | homework help in the wrong way: | | http://haskell.org/hawiki/HomeworkHelp | | Comments, criticisms and contributions are most welcome. | | Cheers, | Andrew Bromage | _______________________________________________ | Haskell-Cafe mailing list | Haskell-Cafe(a)haskell.org | http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

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Help on Homework help
by Andrew J Bromage 03 Sep '03

03 Sep '03

G'day all. In response to the recent poll, and because I promised to, here is a first attempt at a page to direct people to, should they ask for homework help in the wrong way: http://haskell.org/hawiki/HomeworkHelp Comments, criticisms and contributions are most welcome. Cheers, Andrew Bromage

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Poll: How to respond to homework questions
by Tom Pledger 03 Sep '03

03 Sep '03

Hi. I'm curious about what the people on this list consider appropriate, as responses to homework questions. Even if there isn't a consensus, it may be interesting to see how opinion is divided. Please consider the following. (A) Give a perfect answer. (B) Give a subtly flawed answer. (C) Give an obfuscated answer. (D) Give a critique of what the questioner has tried so far. (E) Give relevant general advice without answering the specific question. I mean them to include giving references, e.g. a Wiki URL to relevant general advice would count as (E). Which of those do you approve of? Which do you disapprove of? Please email me a concise vote, e.g. OK: B D E Not OK: A and I'll post a collated result next week. - Tom

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