On 15/11/10 15:23, Dmitry Astapov wrote:
== Dragonfly ==
Participants: Finlay Thompson, Edward Abraham
Cloudy Bayes: Hierarchical Bayesian modeling in Haskell
The Cloudy Bayes project aims to develop a fast Bayesian model fitter that takes advantage of modern multiprocessor machines. It will support model descriptions in the BUGS model description language (WinBUGS, OpenBUGS, and JAGS). It will be implemented as an embedded domain specific language (EDSL) within Haskell. A wide range of model hierarchical Bayesian model structures will be possible, including many of the models used in medical, ecological, and biological sciences.
This is slightly OT, but having used WinBUGS a little, I am very pleased to see this listed as a project. WinBUGS is a commendable piece of work, but is really showing its age these days. Between its really horrible error messages if anything goes wrong, awkward scripting/job-running interface (slightly eased by R2WinBUGS), and of course lack of support for multicore, I think this is a case where parallel Haskell could provide a lot of benefits over the existing software. Also, can you tell us which (if any) of these projects will be released as open-source? Thanks, Neil.