December 2010 - Haskell

ICFP 2011: Call for papers
by Wouter Swierstra 09 Dec '10

09 Dec '10

===================================================================== Call for Papers ICFP 2011: International Conference on Functional Programming Tokyo, Japan, Monday 19 -- Wednesday 21 September 2011 http://www.icfpconference.org/icfp2011 ===================================================================== Important Dates ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Titles, abstracts & keywords due: Thursday 17 March 2011 at 14:00 UTC Submissions due: Thursday 24 March 2011 at 14:00 UTC Author response: Tuesday & Wednesday 17-18 May Notification: Monday 30 May 2011 Final copy due: Friday 01 July 2011 Conference: Monday-Wednesday 19-21 September 2011 Scope ~~~~~ ICFP 2011 seeks original papers on the art and science of functional programming. Submissions are invited on all topics from principles to practice, from foundations to features, and from abstraction to application. The scope includes all languages that encourage functional programming, including both purely applicative and imperative languages, as well as languages with objects, concurrency, or parallelism. Particular topics of interest include * Language Design: type systems; concurrency and distribution; modules; components and composition; metaprogramming; relations to imperative, object-oriented, or logic programming; interoperability * Implementation: abstract machines; virtual machines; interpretation; compilation; compile-time and run-time optimization; memory management; multi-threading; exploiting parallel hardware; interfaces to foreign functions, services, components, or low-level machine resources * Software-Development Techniques: algorithms and data structures; design patterns; specification; verification; validation; proof assistants; debugging; testing; tracing; profiling * Foundations: formal semantics; lambda calculus; rewriting; type theory; mathematical logic; monads; continuations; delimited continuations; global, delimited, or local effects * Transformation and Analysis: abstract interpretation; partial evaluation; program transformation; program calculation; program proofs; normalization by evaluation * Applications and Domain-Specific Languages: symbolic computing; formal-methods tools; artificial intelligence; systems programming; distributed-systems and web programming; hardware design; databases; XML processing; scientific and numerical computing; graphical user interfaces; multimedia programming; scripting; system administration; security; education * Functional Pearls: elegant, instructive, and fun essays on functional programming * Experience Reports: short papers that provide evidence that functional programming really works or describe obstacles that have kept it from working in a particular application Abbreviated instructions for authors ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * By 17 March 2011, 14:00 UTC, submit a title, an abstract of at most 300 words, and keywords. * By 24 March 2011, 14:00 UTC, submit a full paper of at most 12 pages (6 pages for a Functional Pearl and for an Experience Report), including bibliography and figures. The deadlines will be strictly enforced and papers exceeding the page limits will be summarily rejected. * Authors have the option to attach supplementary material to a submission, on the understanding that reviewers may choose not to look at it. * Each submission must adhere to SIGPLAN's republication policy, as explained on the web at http://www.acm.org/sigplan/republicationpolicy.htm In addition, authors of resubmitted (but previously rejected) papers have the option to attach an annotated copy of the reviews of their previous submission(s), explaining how they have addressed these previous reviews in the present submission. If a reviewer identifies him/herself as a reviewer of this previous submission and wishes to see how his/her comments have been addressed, the program chair will communicate to this reviewer the annotated copy of his/her previous review. Otherwise, no rewiewer will read the annotated copies of the previous reviews. Overall, a submission will be evaluated according to its relevance, correctness, significance, originality, and clarity. It should explain its contributions in both general and technical terms, clearly identifying what has been accomplished, explaining why it is significant, and comparing it with previous work. The technical content should be accessible to a broad audience. Functional Pearls and Experience Reports are separate categories of papers that need not report original research results and must be marked as such at the time of submission. Detailed guidelines on both categories are on the conference web site. Proceedings will be published by ACM Press. Authors of accepted submissions are expected to transfer the copyright to the ACM. Presentations will be videotaped and released online if the presenter consents by signing an additional permission form at the time of the presentation. Formatting: Submissions must be in PDF format printable in black and white on US Letter sized paper and interpretable by Ghostscript. If this requirement is a hardship, make contact with the program chair at least one week before the deadline. Papers must adhere to the standard ACM conference format: two columns, nine-point font on a ten-point baseline, with columns 20pc (3.33in) wide and 54pc (9in) tall, with a column gutter of 2pc (0.33in). A suitable document template for LaTeX is available from SIGPLAN at http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigplan/authorInformation.htm Submission: Submissions will be accepted electronically at a URL to be named later. Improved versions of a paper may be submitted at any point before the submission deadline using the same web interface. Author response: Authors will have a 48-hour period, starting at 14:00 UTC on Tuesday 17 May 2010, to read reviews and respond to them. Special Journal Issue: There will be a special issue of the Journal of Functional Programming with papers from ICFP 2011. The program committee will invite the authors of select accepted papers to submit a journal version to this issue. Conference Chairs: Manuel M T Chakravarty, University of New South Wales, Australia Zhenjiang Hu, National Institute of Informatics (NII), Japan Program Chair: Olivier Danvy, Aarhus University, Denmark Program Committee: Kenichi Asai, Ochanomizu University, Japan Josh Berdine, Microsoft Research, UK Adam Chlipala, Harvard University, USA William Cook, University of Texas at Austin, USA Maribel Fernandez, King's College London, UK Ronald Garcia, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Neal Glew, Intel Labs, USA Jacques Garrigue, Nagoya University, Japan Suresh Jagannathan, Purdue University, USA Sam Lindley, University of Edinburgh, UK Frank Pfenning, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Paola Quaglia, University of Trento, Italy Alexis Saurin, University of Paris VII, France Mike Spivey, Oxford University, UK Kristian Stoevring, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Doaitse Swierstra, Utrecht University, The Netherlands David Van Horn, Northeastern University, USA Rene Vestergaard, JAIST, Japan Edwin Westbrook, Rice University, USA

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Haskell Weekly News: Issue 161 - December 08, 2010
by Daniel Santa Cruz 09 Dec '10

09 Dec '10

Welcome to issue 161 of the HWN, a newsletter covering developments in the [1]Haskell community in the week of November 28 - December 04. Jan Snajder [2]announced the release of genprog, a genetic programming library. Ian Lynagh informed us that the haskell.org server migration is now complete. There might still be some issues lying around, if you happen to spot one, please let the admins know. The biggest announcement this week came from Galois, Inc. on the [3]immediate release of the Haskell Lightweight Virtual Machine. "The HaLVM is a port of the GHC runtime system to the Xen hypervisor, allowing programmers to create Haskell programs that run directly on Xen's "bare metal."" Isabelle Perseil informed us that there is an [4]extension to the submission deadline for papers for International Conference on the Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (ICECCS) until December 15th. Gregory D. Weber [5]informed us of an update to his Sifflet tool, and sifflet-lib. "Sifflet is a visual, functional programming language and support system for students learning about recursion." This week we had 48 new StackOverflow questions, and 33 new Reddit stories. Hackage saw 108 uploads/updates from 59 distinct contributors. Most active uploaders to hackage were Michael Snoyman (16 uploads) and Andy Stewart (13 uploads). Big note of thanks to Janis Voigtländer and to Benjamin L. Russell for sending in bits for this newsletter. So, what went on this week? Top Reddit Stories * Galois releases the Haskell Lightweight Virtual Machine (HaLVM) Domain: galois.com, Score: 105, Comments: 26 On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ee4ve/galois_releases_the_haskell_… Original: http://www.galois.com/blog/2010/11/30/galois-releases-the-haskell-lightweig… * Steve Yegge: Haskell Researchers Announce Discovery of Industry Programmer Who Gives a @#!& Domain: steve-yegge.blogspot.com, Score: 54, Comments: 42 On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/eeqw9/steve_yegge_haskell_research… Original: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2010/12/haskell-researchers-announce-discov… * Fun with monad comprehensions Domain: blog.n-sch.de, Score: 35, Comments: 9 On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ecu0w/fun_with_monad_comprehension… Original: http://blog.n-sch.de/2010/11/27/fun-with-monad-comprehensions/ * The Arrow Calculus Domain: wadler.blogspot.com, Score: 34, Comments: 2 On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ee0ux/the_arrow_calculus/ Original: http://wadler.blogspot.com/2010/11/arrow-calculus.html * My strings can beat up your string Domain: finger-tree.blogspot.com, Score: 32, Comments: 13 On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/eecw2/my_strings_can_beat_up_your_… Original: http://finger-tree.blogspot.com/2010/11/my-strings-can-beat-up-your-strings… * Haskell Package Layout: a proposal Domain: mtnviewmark.wordpress.com, Score: 27, Comments: 8 On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/efhde/haskell_package_layout_a_pro… Original: http://mtnviewmark.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/haskell-package-layout/ * Real World Haskell ebook today: 60% off. Use code DDF2H Domain: oreil.ly, Score: 25, Comments: 16 On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/edexw/real_world_haskell_ebook_tod… Original: http://oreil.ly/free2choose * Comprehensive Monad Notation Domain: zenzike.com, Score: 23, Comments: On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/ef5rf/comprehensive_monad_notation/ Original: http://zenzike.com/posts/2010-12-02-comprehensive-monad-notation/ * Google AI Challenge: Languages Used by the Best Programmers Domain: r-bloggers.com, Score: 23, Comments: 13 On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/efrfv/google_ai_challenge_language… Original: http://www.r-bloggers.com/google-ai-challenge-languages-used-by-the-best-pr… * A small matter of illegal characters Domain: serpentine.com, Score: 22, Comments: 2 On Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/edkhz/a_small_matter_of_illegal_ch… Original: http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2010/11/29/a-small-matter-of-illegal-charact… Top StackOverflow Questions * Whats really more performant? Haskell or OCaml votes: 12, answers: 4 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4308137/whats-really-more-performant-has… * Problems on migrating from functional to OO votes: 10, answers: 5 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4348788/problems-on-migrating-from-funct… * Getting a list of all possible data type values in Haskell votes: 8, answers: 3 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4299319/getting-a-list-of-all-possible-d… * Haskell: Want a better way of doing: value == x || value == y || … votes: 6, answers: 1 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4294652/haskell-want-a-better-way-of-doi… * Is/Should wrapping functions into a monad transformer be considered bad practice? votes: 6, answers: 3 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4317101/is-should-wrapping-functions-int… * Trick for “reusing” arguments in Haskell? votes: 5, answers: 2 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4333864/trick-for-reusing-arguments-in-h… * How to write common “if” branching in Haskell votes: 4, answers: 5 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4296887/how-to-write-common-if-branching… * Comparing functions in Haskell votes: 4, answers: 4 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4328620/comparing-functions-in-haskell * Encapsulating a list of functions in haskell in a single one votes: 4, answers: 2 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4343951/encapsulating-a-list-of-function… * Can I have a value constructor named “/”"? votes: 4, answers: 3 Read on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4348605/can-i-have-a-value-constructor-n… Quotes from the Week * camccann: A humor monad? So basically that's a model where jokes about something are equivalent to jokes about jokes about something. In other words, meta-humor in-jokes. * djahandarie: I'm like a massively parallel but slow clocked processor * wlangstroth: It's disgusting hom much talent there is at galois About the Haskell Weekly News New editions are posted to [6]the Haskell mailing list as well as to [7]the Haskell Sequence and [8]Planet Haskell. [9]RSS is also available, and headlines appear on [10]haskell.org. To help create new editions of this newsletter, please send stories to dstcruz(a)gmail.com. Until next time, Daniel Santa Cruz References 1. http://haskell.org/ 2. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/18322 3. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/18328 4. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/18339 5. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/18344 6. http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell 7. http://sequence.complete.org/ 8. http://planet.haskell.org/ 9. http://sequence.complete.org/node/feed 10. http://haskell.org/

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ANNOUNCE: genprog-0.1
by Jan Snajder 08 Dec '10

08 Dec '10

Dear Haskellers, I am pleased to announce the release of genprog-0.1, a genetic programming library. Genetic programming is an evolutionary technique, inspired by biological evolution, to evolve programs for solving specific problems. A genetic program is represented by a value of an algebraic datatype and associated with a custom-defined fitness value indicating the quality of the solution. Starting from a randomly generated initial population of genetic programs, the genetic operators of selection, crossover, and mutation are used to evolve programs of increasingly better quality. genprog-0.1 is available from Hackage at: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/genprog An example of how to use the library is included in the documentation. Cheers, Jan

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ANN: hledger 0.13
by Simon Michael 07 Dec '10

07 Dec '10

I've released hledger 0.13, with readline editing and tab completion from Judah Jacobson, more ledger compatibility, a more robust and installable web interface, bugfixes, and a much-deliberated package split. Docs and mac and 64-bit linux binaries are at http://hledger.org , and of course you can cabal update and cabal install hledger, cabal install hledger-web and so on. I didn't manage to build new windows or linux 32-bit binaries today, but they'll appear when I do. Let it be noted that maintaining a non-trivial cross-platform haskell app is currently quite hard. Release notes: * move web, vty, chart commands into separate hledger-web, hledger- vty, hledger-chart packages. This both simplifies (no more build flags) and complicates (more room for dependency hassles), but I hope overall it will be easier and more scalable. * all packages but chart are now marked "beta", ie "not finished but suitable for everyday use" * parsing: ledger compatibility: support D default commodity directive * parsing: ledger compatibility: ignore metadata tags on transactions and postings * parsing: ledger compatibility: ignore cleared flags at the start of postings * parsing: ledger compatibility: ignore C commodity conversion directives * parsing: price precisions no longer affect commodities' display precisions * add: readline-style editing * add: tab-completion for account names * add: add the default commodity, if any, to commodity-less amounts (#26) * add: misc. commodity/precision/defaults-related bugfixes * chart: give a meaningful error message for empty journals * chart: update for current Chart lib (0.14) * web: support files now live in ./.hledger/web/ and will be auto- created at startup * web: page layout is more robust with wide content * web: allow editing of included files * web: handle multiple filter patterns correctly * web: allow single- or double-quoted filter patterns containing spaces * web: update for current yesod lib (0.6.*) * transaction balancing is now based on display precision (#23) * briefer, more informative usage error messages Stats: 91 days and 117 commits since last release, now at 5997 lines of code with 151 tests. hledger is at a point where real-world user and developer input is needed to focus it; participants welcome. Best, -Simon

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ANNOUNCE: GHC version 7.0.1
by Ian Lynagh 07 Dec '10

07 Dec '10

============================================================= The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 7.0.1 ============================================================= The GHC Team is pleased to announce a new major release of GHC. Since the 6.12 branch we are delighted that more than 60 people have contributed patches to GHC or the accompanying libraries and utilities. There have been a number of significant changes since the last major release, including: * GHC now defaults to the Haskell 2010 language standard * -fglasgow-exts is now deprecated, in favour of the individual extension flags * On POSIX platforms, there is a new I/O manager based on epoll/kqueue/poll, which allows multithreaded I/O code to scale to a much larger number (100k+) of threads * GHC now includes an LLVM code generator which, for certain code, can bring some nice performance improvements * The type checker has been overhauled, which means it is now able to correctly handle interactions between the type systemextensions * The inliner has been overhauled, which should in general give better performance while reducing unnecessary code-size explosion * Large parts of the runtime system have been overhauled, including fixing several instances of pathological performance when there are large numbers of threads * Due to changes in the runtime system, if you are using Control.Parallel.Strategies from the parallel package, please upgrade to at least version 2 (preferably version 3) * The full Haskell import syntax can now been used to bring modules into scope in GHCi * GHC now comes with a more recent mingw bundled on Windows, which includes a fix for windres on Windows 7 * There is a new -fno-ghci-sandbox flag, which stops GHCi running computations in a separate thread; in particular, this works around an issue running GLUT from GHCi on OS X The full release notes are here: http://new-www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.0.1/html/users_guide/release-7-0-1.ht… How to get it ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The easy way is to go to the web page, which should be self-explanatory: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ We supply binary builds in the native package format for many platforms, and the source distribution is available from the same place. Packages will appear as they are built - if the package for your system isn't available yet, please try again later. Background ~~~~~~~~~~ Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998 and revised December 2002. GHC is a state-of-the-art programming suite for Haskell. Included is an optimising compiler generating good code for a variety of platforms, together with an interactive system for convenient, quick development. The distribution includes space and time profiling facilities, a large collection of libraries, and support for various language extensions, including concurrency, exceptions, and foreign language interfaces (C, whatever). GHC is distributed under a BSD-style open source license. A wide variety of Haskell related resources (tutorials, libraries, specifications, documentation, compilers, interpreters, references, contact information, links to research groups) are available from the Haskell home page (see below). On-line GHC-related resources ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Relevant URLs on the World-Wide Web: GHC home page http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ GHC developers' home page http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ Haskell home page http://www.haskell.org/ Supported Platforms ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The list of platforms we support, and the people responsible for them, is here: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Contributors Ports to other platforms are possible with varying degrees of difficulty. The Building Guide describes how to go about porting to a new platform: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building Developers ~~~~~~~~~~ We welcome new contributors. Instructions on accessing our source code repository, and getting started with hacking on GHC, are available from the GHC's developer's site run by Trac: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ Mailing lists ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, use the web interfaces at http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-bugs There are several other haskell and ghc-related mailing lists on www.haskell.org; for the full list, see http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ Some GHC developers hang out on #haskell on IRC, too: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/IRC_channel Please report bugs using our bug tracking system. Instructions on reporting bugs can be found here: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/reportabug

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Link to Gentle Tutoral broken
by Eileen Head 06 Dec '10

06 Dec '10

Is "A Gentle Tutoral" still available @haskell.org?

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Memory management job
by Simon Peyton-Jones 06 Dec '10

06 Dec '10

Dear Haskellers and Camlers I'm posting this job ad on behalf of Richard Brooksby at Ravenbrook. They do cool stuff, and I thought some of you might be interested. Simon Ravenbrook is seeking a developer to work with us on the Memory Pool System (MPS), a mature, open source, high reliability, high performance memory management system with a unique and innovative architecture. You can read an overview here <http://www.ravenbrook.com/project/mps/doc/2002-01-30/ismm2002-paper/ismm200…>. The MPS is a highly engineered "Swiss watch" of a system with an extremely low bug rate. We're looking for someone who can support our commercial clients with customisations, but also develop the MPS for new opportunities. It could be a half-time position (or subcontract), paying about £35k pro rata. This could grow if you are successful in developing new commercial opportunities for the MPS. We have several other options for work structure and payment that we can discuss with you. There can be a great deal of flexibility and a higher rate of pay depending on what kind of risk/reward tradeoff you need. Ask! This is an excellent opportunity for someone interested in memory management and garbage collection research. We are keen to promote research, and the flexible nature of this work would allow time for it. It's also an excellent opportunity for someone interested in developing commercial applications for memory management and garbage collection. There would also be an opportunity to get involved with our other consulting work, or even video game development. Essential requirements: * you will mostly need to work at our office in Cambridge, UK * you will need to start early in 2011 * highly professional attitude to quality, reliability, and commercial relationships * able to self-start, plan, and manage yourself * excellent verbal and written technical communication skills * excellent knowledge of ISO/IEC 9899:1990 and ISO/IEC 9899:1999. (Oh OK then, I mean C.) * good understanding of operating systems and memory management * understanding of processor architectures and assembly language Also very useful: * some compiler and language run-time development experience * good understanding of threads, concurrency, and race/hazard issues * some low level systems and embedded systems experience * low-level Unix (including Mac) and Windows programming * some experience in soft real-time systems * keen interest in programming languages, compilers, provability Address in sig. Do get in touch. PLEASE NOTE: Generic CVs and resumes as Word document attachments will be trashed. Explain why you might be good for us, in plain text or on the phone. Thanks! --- Richard Brooksby <rb(a)ravenbrook.com<mailto:rb@ravenbrook.com>> Director Ravenbrook Limited <http://www.ravenbrook.com/> PO Box 205, Cambridge CB2 1AN, United Kingdom Voice: +44 777 9996245 Fax: +44 1223 750036

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International Workshop on Intermediate Representations (WIR 2011)
by Simon Peyton-Jones 06 Dec '10

06 Dec '10

Dear functional friends Here's the Call for Papers for a new Workshop on Intermediate Representations. I expect it to get a lot of papers about the JVM and program dependence graphs, but the Chair explicitly wants papers about intermediate representations for functional programs, both typed and untyped. So, do me a favour :-) and submit your paper, lest I get landed with a mountain of SSA papers to review. (Yes, SSA is just CPS in disguise. But the disguise is heavy.) The deadline is rather short: Jan 21. Happy Christmas! Simon ============================== Call for Papers International Workshop on Intermediate Representations (WIR 2011) Co-located with CGO 2011, April 2/3 2011 in Chamonix, France http://researchr.org/conference/wir-2011 Description =========== The intermediate representation is the core of any program transformation tool. Its design has a significant impact on the simplicity, efficiency, and effectiveness of program transformations. The developments in concurrent programming, integrated development environments, and domain-specific languages pose new requirements on intermediate representations. This workshop provides a forum to discuss current trends and experiences in the design, implementation, and application of intermediate representations. Topics of Interest ================== The list of topics includes, but is not limited to: * intermediate representations for o parallelism and concurrency o instrumentation o JIT compilation o compiler verification o domain-specific languages o refactoring o integrated development environments * functional intermediate representations for imperative programs * translation to, and code generation from an IR * modeling low-level machine details in IRs * impact of IR on the precision of static analyzers * representing static analysis results in an IR * origin tracking Submission ========== We solicit submission of original papers on topics relevant to intermediate representations. Papers should be formatted in SIGPLAN Proceedings Format, 9 point font, and be at most 8 pages in length. * http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigplan/authorInformation.htm Selected papers will be published in the ACM digital library (to be confirmed). Papers should be submitted electronically with easychair: * http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wir2011 Important Dates =============== * Submission: January 21, 2011 * Notification: February 25, 2011 * Camera-ready: March 18, 2011 * Workshop: April 2/3, 2011 Organizers ========== * Florent Bouchez * Sebastian Hack * Eelco Visser Program Committee ================= * Florent Bouchez (chair) * Martin Bravenboer * Albert Cohen * François de Ferrière * Robert Fuhrer * Sebastian Hack (chair) * Andrew Kennedy * Sorin Lerner * Nathaniel Nystrom * Simon Peyton Jones * Tijs van der Storm * Eelco Visser (chair)

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ANNOUNCE: Sifflet visual programming language, release 1.2.2
by gdweber＠iue.edu 03 Dec '10

03 Dec '10

Sifflet and sifflet-lib 1.2.2 are now available on Hackage. Sifflet is a visual, functional programming language and support system for students learning about recursion. Sifflet programmers define functions by drawing diagrams, and the Sifflet interpreter uses diagrams to show how the function calls are evaluated. Sifflet-lib is the library containing many modules of the sifflet application. What's New ---------- - December 3, 2010: Version 1.2.2 provides a little safety for users who close the main (Workspace) window. The application now offers to save a file, if there are changes, and quits. - November 19, 2010: Version 1.2.1 (previously unannounced) provides compatibility with the latest Haskell GTK packages (gtk and friends version 0.12). About Sifflet ------------- Sifflet is a visual, functional programming language intended as an aid for learning about recursion. * A picture explains Sifflet better than words: please see the screenshot showing how to evaluate 3!: http://mypage.iu.edu/~gdweber/software/sifflet/home.html * Features: - Visual editor. - Visual tracer/debugger which shows how recursive and other function calls are evaluated. To support active learning and avoid screen clutter, Sifflet displays only as much of the computation as the user requests. - A carefully crafted tutorial with 31 pictures and about as many pages. - Number, string, and list data types. - A small collection of primitive functions. - Runnable examples of compound functions. - Sifflet functions can be "exported" to Scheme, Python 3, and Haskell. * Download: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/sifflet-lib http://hackage.haskell.org/package/sifflet * Home page: http://mypage.iu.edu/~gdweber/software/sifflet/home.html * Tutorial: http://mypage.iu.edu/~gdweber/software/sifflet/doc/tutorial.html -- ___ ___ __ _ / _ \ / _ \| | | | Gregory D. Weber, Associate Professor / /_\// / | | | /\ | | Indiana University East / /_\\/ /__| | |/ \| | http://mypage.iu.edu/~gdweber/ \____/\_____/\___/\__/ Tel. (765) 973-8420; FAX (765) 973-8550

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Biohaskell Weekly News (was: Notes from "Haskell takes over the world" BoF at ICFP)
by Ketil Malde 02 Dec '10

02 Dec '10

A long, long time ago, on a mailing list far away, Don Stewart <dons(a)galois.com> wrote: > Here are the notes transcribed from the Future of Haskell BoF held > after the Haskell Symposium last week. > * Need to encourage special interest groups (SIGs) to form around > particular domain areas in the libraries. AI, BioInf, Networking, > etc. ^^^^^^ Recently, there seems to have been an increased interest in bioinformatics and Haskell, and I thought it would be a good idea to try to organize the community a bit. After discussing it a bit, we now have: 1) A DNS domain: biohaskell.org 2) A mailing list: http://biohaskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/biohaskell 3) A gitit wiki: http://biohaskell.org If you are interested in bioinformatics and the Haskell programming language, please subscribe to the mailing list and add your voice on the wiki. -k (Also announced at http://blog.malde.org/index.php/2010/11/28/towards-a-biohaskell-community/ but I guess not everybody subscribes to the RSS feed :-) -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants

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