Re: [Haskell-cafe] do you have to use fix with forkio?

2009/3/6 Daryoush Mehrtash :

Two questions:

a)   This  chat server implementation doesn't actually close the connection as a real one would need to do.  If you use "forever"  is there a way to end the loop so as to end the connection? Yes, throw an exception and catch it from outside the forever.

b) In Section 5 of this paper: http://www.cs.yale.edu/~hl293/download/leak.pdf

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Comparing the definition of eSF and e reveals that the primary difference is in the fixed-point operators they use. e uses Haskell’s built-in fixed-point operator, which is equivalent to the standard:

fix f = f (fix f) eSF, on the other hand, is defined in terms of the loop combinator, which ties the loop tighter than the standard fixed-point operator. In particular, note in Figure 6 that loop computes the value-level fixed point as z, but re-uses itself in the continuation part. This is the key to avoiding the space leak.

My reading is that the fix operator, at least in some cases, causes space leak.   Where as the arrow's loop, which uses "let" model,   doesn't have this issue.

Question:  Do I need to worry about space leak if I am using the fix to instead of the "let"? the definition of fix in Data.Function[1] actually uses let: fix :: (a -> a) -> a fix f = let x = f x in x

[1] http://darcs.haskell.org/packages/base/Data/Function.hs

Thanks

Daryoush 2009/3/5 Luke Palmer

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On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Donn Cave wrote:

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Quoth Jonathan Cast :

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You can certainly use let:

  reader <- forkIO $ let loop = do       (nr', line) <- readChan chan'       when (nr /= nr') $ hPutStrLn hdl line       loop     in loop

But the version with fix is clearer (at least to people who have fix in their vocabulary) and arguably better style.

Would you mind presenting the better style argument?  To me, the above could not be clearer, so it seems like the version with fix could be only as clear, at best.

I like using fix when it's simple rather than let, because it tells me the purpose of the binding.  eg., when I see     let foo = ... Where ... is fairly long, I'm not sure what the purpose of foo is, or what its role is in the final computation.  It may not be used at all, or passed to some modifier function, or I don't know what.  Whereas with:    fix $ \foo -> ... I know that whatever ... is, it is what is returne, and the purpose of foo is to use that return value in the expression itself. I know that it's a simple matter of scanning to the corresponding "in", but let can be used for a lot of things, where as fix $ \foo is basically only for simple knot-tying.  Now, that doesn't say anything about the use of fix without an argument (passed to an HOF) or with a tuple as an argument or many other cases, which my brain has not chunked nearly as effectively.  I think fix is best with a single, named argument. Luke _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

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