March 2008 - Haskell - Haskell.org

Announcing Djinn, version 2004-12-11, a coding wizard
by Lennart Augustsson 07 Apr '11

07 Apr '11

Howdy, y'all! I've written a small program that takes a (Haskell) type and gives you back a function of that type if one exists. It's kind of fun, so I thought I'd share it. It's probably best explained with a sample session. calvin% djinn Welcome to Djinn version 2005-12-11. Type :h to get help. # Djinn is interactive if not given any arguments. # Let's see if it can find the identity function. Djinn> f ? a->a f :: a -> a f x1 = x1 # Yes, that was easy. Let's try some tuple munging. Djinn> sel ? ((a,b),(c,d)) -> (b,c) sel :: ((a, b), (c, d)) -> (b, c) sel ((_, v5), (v6, _)) = (v5, v6) # We can ask for the impossible, but then we get what we # deserve. Djinn> cast ? a->b -- cast cannot be realized. # OK, let's be bold and try some functions that are tricky to write: # return, bind, and callCC in the continuation monad Djinn> type C a = (a -> r) -> r Djinn> returnC ? a -> C a returnC :: a -> C a returnC x1 x2 = x2 x1 Djinn> bindC ? C a -> (a -> C b) -> C b bindC :: C a -> (a -> C b) -> C b bindC x1 x2 x3 = x1 (\ c15 -> x2 c15 (\ c17 -> x3 c17)) Djinn> callCC ? ((a -> C b) -> C a) -> C a callCC :: ((a -> C b) -> C a) -> C a callCC x1 x2 = x1 (\ c15 _ -> x2 c15) (\ c11 -> x2 c11) # Well, poor Djinn has a sweaty brow after deducing the code # for callCC so we had better quit. Djinn> :q Bye. To play with Djinn do a darcs get http://darcs.augustsson.net/Darcs/Djinn or get http://darcs.augustsson.net/Darcs/Djinn/Djinn.tar.gz Then just type make. (You need a Haskell 98 implementation and some libraries.) And then start djinn. For the curious, Djinn uses a decision procedure for intuitionistic propositional calculus due to Roy Dyckhoff. It's a variation of Gentzen's LJ system. This means that (in theory) Djinn will always find a function if one exists, and if one doesn't exist Djinn will terminate telling you so. This is the very first version, so expect bugs. :) Share and enjoy. -- Lennart

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Haskell-mode 2.0
by Stefan Monnier 02 Feb '09

02 Feb '09

I have recently taken over maintainership of Haskell-mode, and after making a bunch of changes, I figured it would be a good idea to make a new release. You can find this new release at: http://www-perso.iro.umontreal.ca/~monnier/elisp/ If you think it should also be found at http://www.haskell.org/haskell-mode/, then please tell John Peterson to get back to me (my email to him seem to go straight to the bitbucket. John?). This release has several changes that have all been only lightly tested, especially w.r.t compatibility with various Emacsen. See appended the NEWS file that describes some of the notewirthy changes. Stefan Changes since 1.45: * keybindings C-c <char> have been replaced by C-c C-<char> so as not to collide with minor modes. * The following modules are now automatically activated without having to add anything to haskell-mode-hook: haskell-font-lock (just turn on global-font-lock-mode). haskell-decl-scan (just bind `imenu' to some key). * In recent Emacsen, haskell-doc hooks into eldoc-mode. * haskell-hugs and haskell-ghci are superceded by inf-haskell. * Indentation rules have been improved when using layout inside parens/braces. * Symbols like -> and \ can be displayed as actual arrows and lambdas. See haskell-font-lock-symbols. * Tweaks to the font-lock settings. Among other things paren-matching with things like \(x,y) should work correctly now. * New maintainer <monnier(a)gnu.org>.

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The real Monad Transformer
by Henning Thielemann 13 Nov '08

13 Nov '08

It was argued that people avoid Haskell because of terms from Category theory like 'Monad'. This problem can now be solved by a wrapper which presents all the WWW without monads! Start e.g. at http://saxophone.jpberlin.de/MonadTransformer?source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ehas… Of course the tool is written in Haskell, that is, Haskell helps solving problems which only exist because of Haskell. Bug reports and feature requests can be tracked at https://sourceforge.net/projects/parallelweb

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NW Functional Programming Interest Group
by Greg Meredith 19 Jul '08

19 Jul '08

All, Apologies for multiple listings. A small cadre of us are organizing a Northwest Functional Programming Interest Group (hey... NWFPIG, that's kinda funny). Our first official meeting is at the The Seattle Public Library 1000 - 4th Ave. Seattle, WA 98104 from 17:00 - 18:00 on February 20th. On the first meeting's agenda we'll be - giving people who are interested in or actively using FP for work or play a chance to meet - seeking to build up a pipeline of presentations and guest speakers - trying to keep organizational mishigosh to a minimum Hope to see you there. Monadically yours, --greg -- L.G. Meredith Managing Partner Biosimilarity LLC 806 55th St NE Seattle, WA 98105 +1 206.650.3740 http://biosimilarity.blogspot.com

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PPDP'08: Last Call for Papers
by Elvira Albert 31 Mar '08

31 Mar '08

................................................................ ACM PPDP 2008 - Last Call For Papers 10th ACM-SIGPLAN International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming Valencia, Spain, July 15-17, 2008 http://www.clip.dia.fi.upm.es/Conferences/PPDP08 ................................................................ IMPORTANT DATES Submission: April 10, 2008 Notification: May 15, 2008 Conference: July 15-17, 2008 SCOPE: PPDP 2008 is a forum for researchers and practitioners in the declarative programming communities. It solicits papers on all aspects of logic, constraint and functional programming, as well as on related paradigms such as visual programming, executable specification languages, database languages, AI and knowledge representation languages for the "semantic web". MAIN TOPICS: Logic, Constraint, and Functional Programming; Database, AI and Knowledge Representation Languages; Visual Programming; Executable Specification for Languages; Applications of Declarative Programming; Methodologies for Program Design and Development; Declarative Aspects of Object-Oriented Programming; Concurrent Extensions to Declarative Languages; Declarative Mobile Computing; Paradigm Integration; Proof Theoretic and Semantic Foundations; Type and Module Systems; Program Analysis and Verification; Program Transformation; Abstract Machines and Compilation; Programming Environments. PROCEEDINGS: The proceedings will be published by ACM Press RELATED EVENTS: PPDP 2008 will be co-located with the 15th International Static Analysis Symposium (SAS 2008) and the 18th International Symposium on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 2008). SYMPOSIUM CHAIR: Elvira Albert, Complutense University of Madrid PROGRAM CHAIR: Sergio Antoy, Portland State University INVITED SPEAKER: Michael Leuschel, University of DÃ¼sseldorf, Germany PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Elvira Albert Complutense University of Madrid, Spain Sergio Antoy Portland State University, USA Maribel Fernandez King's College London, UK Maurizio Gabbrielli University of Bologna, Italy Neil Ghani University of Nottingham, UK Masami Hagiya University of Tokyo, Japan Joxan Jaffar National University, Singapore Claude Kirchner INRIA Bordeaux, France Herbert Kuchen University of Muenster, Germany Michael Maher NICTA and University of New South Wales, Australia Dale Miller INRIA Saclay, France Eugenio Moggi University of Genova, Italy Kostis Sagonas Uppsala University, Sweden Carsten Schurmann, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark Peter Sestoft IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark LOCAL CHAIR: Christophe Joubert SYMPOSIUM VENUE: The conference will be held at the Technical University of Valencia, Spain.

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Announce: Decimal arithmetic package
by Paul Johnson 30 Mar '08

30 Mar '08

I've just uploaded version 0.1.0 of a decimal arithmetic package to Hackage. Decimal numbers are stored as an Integral mantissa and a Word8 exponent, where the number stored is mantissa * 10^(-exponent). In other words the exponent is the number of decimal places stored. There are also routines for partitioning a value such that the sum of the parts is equal to the original value. This is useful in financial arithmetic. This came out of my ongoing work on an AMQP binding for Haskell. Version 0-10 of the AMQP spec includes decimal fractions defined in this way for financial applications, so I thought I'd make a proper job of it. A darcs repository will be set up shortly. Paul.

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ANNOUNCE: xmonad 0.7 released
by Don Stewart 29 Mar '08

29 Mar '08

http://xmonad.org The xmonad dev team is pleased to announce xmonad 0.7! The headlines: The 0.7 release of xmonad provides several improvements over 0.6, including improved integration with GNOME, more flexible "rules", various stability fixes, and of course, many new and interesting features in the extension library (general support for window decorations, utf8 support, scratch pad terminals, pointer control) and more! New GNOME support: Active, automated support for GNOME utilities. We know our users often like to use GNOME menus, tools and status bars, and we'd like to announce that xmonad actively supports GNOME! Extensions for communicating with and utilising gnome utilities come in the library suite, as well as extensive documentation and support. For more information see the GNOME/xmonad integration page on the wiki. A period of active development: In the past year, the xmonad development team received contributions from over 60 developers, making xmonad one of the largest window manager development teams around, and dwarfing other tiling window manager projects. Yet, at the same time, the core code base remains at around 1000 lines of code, with another 7000 lines in the extension library -- a significant achievment! Change logs: http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Notable_changes_since_0.6 http://xmonad.org/changelog-0.7.txt http://xmonad.org/changelog-xmc-0.7.txt About: xmonad is a tiling window manager for X. Windows are arranged automatically to tile the screen without gaps or overlap, maximising screen use. Window manager features are accessible from the keyboard: a mouse is optional. xmonad is extensible in Haskell, allowing for powerful customisation. Custom layout algorithms, key bindings and other extensions may be written by the user in config files. Layouts are applied dynamically, and different layouts may be used on each workspace. Xinerama is fully supported, allowing windows to be tiled on several physical screens. Features: * Very stable, fast, small and simple. * Automatic window tiling and management * First class keyboard support: a mouse is unnecessary * Full support for tiling windows on multi-head displays * Full support for floating, tabbing and decorated windows * Full support for Gnome and KDE utilities * XRandR support to rotate, add or remove monitors * Per-workspace layout algorithms * Per-screens custom status bars * Compositing support * Powerful, stable customisation and reconfiguration * Large extension library * Excellent, extensive documentation * Large, active development team, support and community Get it! Information, screenshots, documentation, tutorials and community resources are available from the xmonad home page: http://xmonad.org The 0.7 release, and its dependencies, are available from hackage.haskell.org: http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/xmonad xmonad packages are available in the package systems of at least: Debian, Gentoo, Arch, Ubuntu, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Gobo, NixOS, Source Mage, Slackware and 0.7 packages will appear in coming days (some are already available). On the fly updating to xmonad 0.7 is supported. You should be able to upgrade to xmonad 0.7 from 0.6 and earlier, transparently, without losing your session. Load the new code with mod-q and enjoy. Extensions: xmonad comes with a huge library of extensions (now more than 7 times the size of xmonad itself), contributed by viewers like you. Extensions enable pretty much arbitrary window manager behaviour to be implemented by users, in Haskell, in the config files. For more information on using and writing extensions see the webpage. The library of extensions is available from hackage: http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/xmonad-contrib Full documentation for using and writing your own extensions: http://xmonad.org/contrib.html This release brought to you by the xmonad dev team: Spencer Janssen Don Stewart Jason Creighton David Roundy Brent Yorgey Devin Mullins Braden Shepherdson Roman Cheplyaka Lucas Mai Featuring code contributions from over 60 developers: Aaron Denney Adam Vogt Alec Berryman Alex Tarkovsky Alexandre Buisse Andrea Rossato Austin Seipp Bas van Dijk Ben Voui Brandon Allbery Chris Mears Christian Thiemann Clemens Fruhwirth Daniel Neri Daniel Wagner Dave Harrison David Glasser David Lazar Dmitry Kurochkin Dominik Bruhn Dougal Stanton Eric Mertens Ferenc Wagner Gwern Branwen Hans Philipp Annen Ivan Tarasov Jamie Webb Jeremy Apthorp Joachim Breitner Joachim Fasting Joe Thornber Joel Suovaniemi Juraj Hercek Justin Bogner Kai Grossjohann Karsten Schoelzel Klaus Weidner Mathias Stearn Mats Jansborg Matsuyama Tomohiro Michael Fellinger Michael Sloan Miikka Koskinen Neil Mitchell Nelson Elhage Nick Burlett Nicolas Pouillard Nils Anders Danielsson Peter De Wachter Robert Marlow Sam Hughes Shachaf Ben-Kiki Shae Erisson Simon Peyton Jones Stefan O'Rear Tom Rauchenwald Valery V. Vorotyntsev Will Farrington Yaakov Nemoy timthelion As well as the support of many others on the #xmonad and #haskell IRC channels, and the wider Haskell and window manager communities. Thanks to everyone for their support!

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PhD Positions in Language-based Security at Chalmers
by Andrei Sabelfeld 28 Mar '08

28 Mar '08

------------------------------------------------------------------------ *PhD Student Positions in Programming Language-based Security* Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden Application deadline: April 30, 2008 Full version of this announcement: http://www.chalmers.se/en/sections/news/vacancies/positions/phd-student-pos… ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *The Department* The department provides a strong, international, and dynamic research environment with about 75 faculty and 75 PhD students. For more information, see http://www.chalmers.se/cse/EN/. Knowledge of Swedish is not a prerequisite for application. English is our working language for research. Both Swedish and English are used in undergraduate courses. Half of our researchers and PhD students are native Swedes; the rest come from more than 30 different countries. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *PhD Project* The PhD students will join a world-leading team of researchers on *programming language-based security*. Language-based security facilitates specifying and enforcing security policies at the level of programming languages early in the software design and construction phase. The focus of the advertised positions is on *language-based information-flow security*. Given a program that manipulates sensitive data, the aim is to make sure there is no information flow (caused by the execution of the program) that may compromise the sensitive data. Drawing on the recent progress in this area, the goal of the positions is to pursue the following directions of work: * To design *rich security policies* for confidentiality and integrity, as demanded by practical applications (such as web applications). These security policies should be formal: they should operate at the level of programming-language semantics. * To develop *practical enforcement mechanisms* for these policies in expressive programming languages (such as web languages). These enforcement mechanisms may combine static (for example, type system-based) and dynamic (for example, execution monitoring-based) techniques. * To support the above with case studies in web-application security. In pursuing these goals, there are possibilities for collaboration with our high-profile academic and industrial partners. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Details about Employment* PhD student positions are limited to five years and will then normally include 20% departmental work, mostly teaching duties. Salary for the position is as specified in Chalmers' general agreement for PhD student positions. The positions are intended to start on September 1, 2008. In exceptional cases, we can imagine moving the starting date. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Suitable Background* Applicants must have a very good degree in Computing Science or in a related subject with a strong Computing Science component. They must also have a strong, documented interest in doing research. The ideal student for the project will have strong background in both programming languages and security. You may even apply if you have not yet completed your degree, but expect to do so before the position starts. In order to improve gender balance, Chalmers welcomes in particular applications from female candidates. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *How to Apply* The full application should contain 1. A letter of application, listing specific research interests 2. Copies of degrees and other certificates 3. A curriculum vitae 4. Letters of recommendation from your teachers or employers 5. Copies of relevant work, for example dissertations, theses, or articles, that you have authored or co-authored You MUST include letters of recommendation: we typically get over 100 applications, and it is simply not feasible for us to request individual letters! Your application needs to include the job reference number 2008/60. The last date for your full application to arrive is April 30, 2008. The application can be submitted electronically, or on paper, following the guidelines on this web page: http://www.chalmers.se/en/sections/news/vacancies/positions/phd-student-pos…

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[GSoC] student applications deadline approaching
by Malcolm Wallace 26 Mar '08

26 Mar '08

Reply-To: haskell-cafe(a)haskell.org Just to remind students who are interested in Google Summer of Code. Student applications are now open, and the final deadline for submitting your proposals is 2400 UTC, 31st March. http://code.google.com/soc/2008/ Regards, Malcolm

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ANNOUNCE: Haskell Server Pages v 0.4
by Niklas Broberg 25 Mar '08

25 Mar '08

Greetings fellow Haskelleers, I am very pleased to announce a new chapter in the Haskell Server Pages saga. After a two-year long hiatus, while we in the team have been busy with Other Stuff, we have resumed work on Project HSP, and this release marks the first milestone. ================= === Project HSP === ================= Haskell Server Pages (HSP) is a programming model for writing dynamic web pages in Haskell, both server-side and client-side. One of its core features is the use of literal XML syntax mixed with ordinary Haskell code. * Project HSP home (with bug/feature tracker): http://code.google.com/p/hsp * Project HSP mailing list: haskell-server-pages(a)googlegroups.com * Project HSP darcs repos: http://code.haskell.org/HSP For flavor, here is a simple Hello World application written in HSP: ----- module HelloWorld where import HSP import HSP.HJScript import HJScript import HJScript.DOM -- A simple HTML page holding a button with onClick action. page :: HSP XML page = <html> <head> <title>Hello World</title> </head> <body> <% <button>click</button> `onClick` (window # alert (string "Hello World !")) %> </body> </html> ----- Note that literal XML elements are first class expressions in HSP, unlike languages like PHP. Also note that using literal XML syntax is by no means required, if you don't feel like writing the XML manually (I sure don't!). There are combinators for building XHTML pages (although they are currently missing from version 0.4, will be added shortly, but release early and all that...). The most interesting new feature in version 0.4 is that literal XML syntax (or the equivalent combinators) can now be used to create XML elements both server-side and client-side, with the same code. Here is another short example script showing this feature: ------------------ module AddParagraph where import HJScript hiding (test) import HJScript.DOM import HSP import HSP.HJScript makeP x = <p><b><% x %></b></p> page :: HSP XML page = <html> <head><title>Add paragraph</title></head> <% do (r,b) <- ref <body><% makeP "Paragraph created Server-side!" %></body> let fun = do let x = document # getElementById (string r) x <: makeP "Paragraph created Client-side!" return () b <: (<button>Click Me!</button> `onClick` fun) %> </html> -------------------- Project HSP v 0.4 consists of a set of packages with related functionality: == package hsx == Haskell Source with XML (HSX, hsx) is a package that contains everything pertaining to literal XML syntax. In particular it contains a) the trhsx preprocessor that translates hsx source files into vanilla Haskell, and b) modules defining the functions that are injected by trhsx. It also nominally contains generic combinators for creating values of the same types as the literal XML syntax, though these modules are not present in 0.4. darcs get --partial http://code.haskell.org/HSP/hsx http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/hsx-0.4 == package hsp == The core HSP package defines the datatypes and functions for writing server-side dynamic web pages. Also defines how to use the HJScript functionality in HSP pages, to allow for client-side dynamics as well. darcs get --partial http://code.haskell.org/HSP/hsp http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/hsp-0.4 == package HJavaScript == This package defines an abstract syntax and (not-so-)pretty printer for a large subset of JavaScript, as Language.HJavaScript. However, a significant difference from JavaScript is that HJavaScript is typed, even on the abstract syntax level using GADTs. The subset of JavaScript that is supported is those parts that lend themself to typing (i.e. no prototyping of classes). darcs get --partial http://code.haskell.org/HSP/hjavascript http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/HJavaScript-0.4 == package HJScript == HJScript is a DSL built on top of HJavaScript, for writing client-side dynamic web pages. The programming model is fairly low-level, resembling the actual JavaScript code quite a lot, but should be easy to extend with higher-level functionality. Notable is that HJScript supports the use of literal XML syntax for creating DOM ElementNodes. Also notable is that HJScript supports Ajax functionality. HJScript and HJavaScript can be used independently of HSP, for creating JavaScript code. darcs get --partial http://code.haskell.org/HSP/hjscript http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/HJScript-0.4 == package hsp-cgi == Run HSP pages as CGI scripts. darcs get --partial http://code.haskell.org/HSP/hsp-cgi http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/hsp-cgi-0.4 (Note: Earlier versions of HSP have come with a server application, hspr, providing the runtime environment for HSP. As of 0.4, this server has been discontinued and should be considered deprecated.) ===================== Notable items on the TODO list for Project HSP: - More functionality, allowing for higher-level programming models. - Writing larger applications, in order to stress test, and serve as inspiration for higher-level functionality. - Integrate with HAppS, to allow stateful computation (among other things). - A home on the web for HSP, with a web page written in HSP. We welcome both users (of course) and contributors to the project. There is much work to be done, and we welcome all help we can get. If you think this is interesting stuff, drop by our mailing list (haskell-server-pages(a)googlegroups.com) Like to do web programming in Haskell? Want to do a GSoC project? We in the project would be happy to see applications for HSP projects, and the list above is a good starting place. See for instance (http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/summer-of-code/ticket/1538) and (http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/summer-of-code/ticket/1539) Cheers, /Niklas on behalf of the Project HSP team

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