May 2010 - Haskell - Haskell.org

ANN: hledger 0.10 released
by Simon Michael 24 May '10

24 May '10

hledger 0.10 is released, with installation and bug fixes and api improvements. Best, -Simon home: http://hledger.org Release notes: 2010/05/23 hledger 0.10 ........................ * fix too-loose testpack dependency, missing safe dependency * fix ghc 6.12 compatibility with -fweb * fix handling of non-ascii arguments with ghc 6.12 * fix "0.8" in --version output * fix an occasional stack overflow error due to infinite recursion in Posting/Transaction equality tests * the -fwebhappstack build flag is gone for now, to avoid a cabal problem * parsing: if there is no description, don't require a space after the transaction date * parsing: balance balanced-virtual postings separately, allow them to have an implicit amount * parsing: timelog entries now generate balanced transactions, using virtual postings * parsing: simpler high-level parse error message * parsing: clearer bad date errors * add: fix wrongful program exit on bad dates * print: negative account patterns now exclude transactions containing any posting to a matched account * vty: rename the ui command to vty for consistency * vty: fix restricted account scope when backing up to top level * web: fix non-ascii handling with ghc 6.12 * web: fix a bug possibly affecting reload-on-change * consolidate module namespace under Hledger, api cleanups Stats: 44 days, 81 commits since last release. Now at 4904 lines of code including tests, 144 tests, 53% coverage.

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Call for Papers (ICFEM 2010)
by Huibiao Zhu 23 May '10

23 May '10

*************************************************************** ICFEM 2010 12th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods *** Call For Papers *** Nov 16-19, 2010 Shanghai, China http://www.sei.ecnu.edu.cn/icfem2010/ *************************************************************** ICFEM brings together those interested in the application of formal engineering methods to computer systems. Researchers and practitioners, from industry, academia, and government, are encouraged to attend, and to help advance the state of the art. We are interested in work that has been incorporated into real production systems, and in theoretical work that promises to bring practical, tangible benefit. ICFEM 2010 will be organized by Software Engineering Institute, East China Normal University. Any inquiries can be sent to icfem2010(a)sei.ecnu.edu.cn. AREA AND TOPICS Submissions related to the following principal themes are encouraged, but any topics relevant to the field of formal methods and their support environments will also be considered: Formal model-based development and code generation Abstraction and refinement Formal specification and modelling Software verification Formal approaches to software testing Software model checking Formal methods for object and component systems Analysis and models for concurrency Formal methods for cloud computing Tool development and integration Software safety, security and reliability Experiments involving verified systems Applications of formal methods SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION Submissions to the conference must not have been published or be concurrently considered for publication elsewhere. All submissions will be judged on the basis of originality, contribution to the field, technical and presentation quality, and relevance to the conference. The proceedings will be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Papers should be written in English and not exceed 16 pages in LNCS format (see http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html for details). Submission should be done through the ICFEM 2010 submission page (http://www.sei.ecnu.edu.cn/icfem2010/) handled by the EasyChair conference system. All queries should be sent to the e-mail address icfem2010(a)sei.ecnu.edu.cn. IMPORTANT DATES May 28, 2010: Abstract submission deadline June 4, 2010: Full-paper submission deadline July 30, 2010: Acceptance/rejection notification August 13, 2010: Final version due ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE Conference Chair: Jifeng He (East China Normal University, China) Program Co-Chairs: Jin Song Dong (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Huibiao Zhu (East China Normal University, China) PROGRAM COMMITTEE Yamine AIT AMEUR (LISI/ENSMA, France) Farhad Arbab (CWI and Leiden University, The Netherlands) Nazareno Aguirre (Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto, Argentina) Bernhard Aichernig (Graz University of Technology, Austria) Keijiro Araki (Kyushu University, Japan) Richard Banach (University of Manchester , UK) Jonathan Bowen (University of Westminster, UK) Karin Breitman (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Michael Butler (University of Southampton, UK) Andrew Butterfield (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) Ana Cavalcanti (University of York, UK) Wei-Ngan Chin (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Jim Davies (Oxford University, UK) Jin Song Dong ((National University of Singapore, Singapore, Co-Chair) Zhenghua Duan (Xidian University, China) Colin Fidge (Queensland University of Technology, Australia) John Fitzgerald (Newcastle University, UK) Joaquim Gabarro (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain) Stefania Gnesi (Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dellInformazione A. Faedo, Italy) Mike Hinchey (University of Limerick, Ireland) Thierry Jeron (INRIA , France) Gerwin Klein (NICTA, Australia) Kim Larsen (Aalborg University, Denmark) Michael Leuschel (Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany) Xuandong Li (Nanjing University, China) Shaoying Liu (Hosei University, Japan) Zhiming Liu (UNU/IIST, Macau) Tiziana Margaria (University of Potsdam, Germany) Brendan Mahony (DSTO, Australia) Tom Maibaum (McMaster University, Canada) Dominique Mery (LORIA & Université Henri Poincaré Nancy 1, France) Huaikou Miao (Shanghai University, China) Flemming Nielson (Technical University of Denmark, Denmark) Jun PANG (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg) Geguang Pu (East China Normal University, China) Shengchao Qin (Durham University, UK) Zongyan Qiu (Peking University, China) Anders P. Ravn (Aalborg University, Denmark) Augusto Sampaio (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil) Marjan Sirjani (Reykjavik University, Iceland) Graeme Smith (University of Queensland, Australia) Jing Sun (University of Auckland, New Zealand) Jun Sun (National University of Singapore, Singapore) Kenji Taguchi (National Institute of Informatics, Japan) Yih-Kuen Tsay (National Taiwan University, Taiwan) T.H. Tse (The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) Sergiy Vilkomir (East Carolina University, USA) Heike Wehrheim (University of Paderborn, Germany) Wang Yi (Uppsala University, Sweden) Hai Wang (Aston University, UK) Ji Wang (National University of Defense Technology, China) Xu Wang (UNU/IIST, Macau) Jim Woodcock (University of York, UK) Jian Zhang (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Huibiao Zhu, China (East China Normal University, China, Co-Chair) STEERING COMMITTEE Keijiro Araki, Japan Jin Song Dong, Singapore Chris George, Canada Jifeng He, China Mike Hinchey, Ireland Shaoying Liu (Chair), Japan John McDermid, UK Tetsuo Tamai, Japan Jim Woodcock, UK

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ANN: hstest 0.0.0
by Dave Hinton 22 May '10

22 May '10

I'm pleased to announce the release of version 0.0.0 of hstest <http://hackage.haskell.org/package/hstest> <http://bitbucket.org/dave4420/hstest/wiki/Home>. hstest runs specially named QuickCheck properties, similar to quickcheck-script, but uses the GHC API. As well as being the first Haskell package I've released, it's the first time I've used the GHC API. I have only tested it with GHC 6.10.1 and 6.10.3, so feedback on whether it works with other versions of GHC is especially welcome, in addition to the usual bug reports. Thanks, /Dave

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2nd CFPapers: 22nd Symposium on Implementation and Applications of Functional Languages (IFL 2010)
by jur 22 May '10

22 May '10

2ND CALL FOR PAPERS 22nd Symposium on Implementation and Application of Functional Languages (IFL 2010) September 1-3, 2010 Utrecht University Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands http://www.cs.uu.nl/ifl2010 After a first successful visit to the USA, the Symposium on Implementation and Application of Functional Languages returns to Europe for its 22nd edition. The hosting institution is Utrecht University in the Netherlands, although the conference itself will take place in the ornithological theme park Avifauna in Alphen aan den Rijn, situated conveniently close to Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport). The symposium dates are September 1-3, 2010. The goal of the IFL symposia is to bring together researchers actively engaged in the implementation and application of functional and function-based programming languages. IFL 2010 will be a venue for researchers to present and discuss new ideas and concepts, work in progress, and publication-ripe results related to the implementation and application of functional languages and function-based programming. Following the IFL tradition, IFL 2010 will use a post-symposium review process to produce formal proceedings which will be published by Springer Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. All participants in IFL 2010 are invited to submit either a draft paper or an extended abstract describing work to be presented at the symposium. At no time may work submitted to IFL be simultaneously submitted to other venues. Here we follow the ACM Sigplan republication policy as defined on http://www.sigplan.org/republicationpolicy.htm. The submissions will be screened by the program committee chair to make sure they are within the scope of IFL, and will appear in the draft proceedings distributed at the symposium. Submissions appearing in the draft proceedings are not peer-reviewed publications. After the symposium, authors will be given the opportunity to incorporate the feedback from discussions at the symposium and will be invited to submit a revised full article for the formal review process. These revised submissions will be reviewed by the program committee using prevailing academic standards to select the best articles, which will appear in the formal proceedings. INVITED SPEAKER Johan Nordlander of Lulea University, the designer and developer of the Timber language, is the invited speaker at IFL 2010. Timber is a functional programming language that draws some of its concepts from object-oriented programming, and has built-in facilities for concurrent execution. The language is specifically targeted at implementing real-time embedded systems. TOPICS IFL welcomes submissions describing practical and theoretical work as well as submissions describing applications and tools. If you are not sure that your work is appropriate for IFL 2010, please contact the PC chair at jur(a)cs.uu.nl. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: language concepts type checking contracts compilation techniques staged compilation runtime function specialization runtime code generation partial evaluation (abstract) interpretation generic programming techniques automatic program generation array processing concurrent/parallel programming concurrent/parallel program execution functional programming and embedded systems functional programming and web applications functional programming and security novel memory management techniques runtime profiling and performance measurements debugging and tracing virtual/abstract machine architectures validation and verification of functional programs tools and programming techniques industrial applications of functional programming PAPER SUBMISSIONS Prospective authors are encouraged to submit papers or extended abstracts to be published in the draft proceedings and to present them at the symposium. All contributions must be written in English, conform to the Springer-Verlag LNCS series format and not exceed 16 pages. The draft proceedings will appear as a technical report of the Department of Computer Science of Utrecht University. SPONSORS IFL 2010 is sponsored by Microsoft Research. As a result we can offer decreased participation fees for Master students and PhD students who plan to attend or present at IFL 2010. PETER LANDIN PRIZE The Peter Landin Prize is awarded to the best paper presented at the symposium every year. The honored article is selected by the program committee based on the submissions received for the formal review process. The prize carries a cash award equivalent to 150 Euros. IMPORTANT DATES Draft proceedings submission deadline July 25, 2010 Registration deadline August 1, 2010 IFL 2010 Symposium September 1-3, 2010 Submission for review process deadline October 25, 2010 Notification Accept/Reject December 22, 2010 Camera ready version February 17, 2011 PROGRAM COMMITTEE Jost Berthold University of Copenhagen (DIKU), Denmark Olaf Chitil University of Kent, UK John Clements California Polytechnic State University, USA Matthew Fluet Rochester Institute of Technology, USA Andy Gill Kansas University, USA Jurriaan Hage (Chair) University of Utrecht, Netherlands Bastiaan Heeren Open University, Netherlands Ralf Hinze University of Oxford, UK John Hughes Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden Yukiyoshi Kameyama University of Tsukuba, Japan Gabriele Keller University of New South Wales, Australia Pieter Koopman Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands Luc Maranget INRIA, France Simon Marlow Microsoft Research, UK Marco T. Morazán Seton Hall University, USA Rex Page University of Oklahoma, USA Ricardo Peña Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain Sven-Bodo Scholz University of Hertfordshire, UK Tom Schrijvers Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium Don Stewart Galois, USA Wouter Swierstra Vector Fabrics, Netherlands Don Syme Microsoft, UK Peter Thiemann University of Freiburg, Germany Phil Trinder Heriott-Watt University, Scotland Janis Voigtländer University of Bonn, Germany Viktória Zsók Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary

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Jane Street is hiring functional programmers
by Yaron Minsky 22 May '10

22 May '10

I would like to announce that Jane Street, a proprietary trading company with offices in New York, London and (soon) Hong Kong is actively looking to hire talented functional programmers. Although our primary development language is OCaml, we're very interested in hiring people with experience in related languages, including Haskell. We're looking for people who have a deep interest in and understanding of software and technology. We're not looking for experience with financial markets --- that's something we believe we can teach people on the job. Jane Street is deeply committed to functional programming, having the largest team of OCaml programmers in any industrial setting, and probably the world's largest OCaml codebase. We use OCaml for running our entire business, supporting everything from research to systems administration to trading systems. If you're interested in seeing how functional programming plays out in the real world, there's no better place than here. The atmosphere is informal and intellectual. There is a focus on education, and people get a chance to learn both about software and about trading. The work is challenging, and you get to see the practical impact of your efforts in quick and dramatic terms. Jane Street is also a small enough place that people have the freedom to get involved in many different areas of the business. Compensation is highly competitive, with a great deal of room for growth. If you'd like to learn more, here are some links. You can get an overview of the firm from our website: http://janestreet.com There's a talk I gave at CMU a while back that gives a good overview of what Jane Street does and why we use a statically typed functional language. http://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/61 We also have a programming blog: http://ocaml.janestreet.com There are also a couple of papers we've written about our experiences here using functional languages. http://www.janestreet.com/technology/articles.php If you're interested, send me a resume and cover letter. -- Yaron Minsky

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EXTENDED DEADLINE: VSTTE workshops on Theory and on Experiments & Tools
by Gudmund Grov 21 May '10

21 May '10

------ Apologies for multiple copies ------ VSTTE 2010: Workshops on Theories, Tools and Experiments Edinburgh, Scotland, 19th August 2010 (*** NEW SUBMISSION DEADLINE: May 28, 2010 *****) The Third International Conference on Verified Software: Theories, Tools, and Experiments (VSTTE) is part of the Verified Software Initiative (VSI), a fifteen-year, cooperative, international project directed at the scientific challenges of large-scale software verification. VSTTE will host two workshops: * VS-Theory focuses on theoretical foundations of software verification. Topics range from the difficult and essential study of soundness of delicate proof methods, to the discovery of new specification techniques and proof methods, to dramatic simplification or unification of existing methods, to as yet unknown breakthroughs. * VS-Tools & Experiments focuses on the development of verification tools and their experimental evaluation. Topics include interfaces between tools, tool integration platforms, and case studies. The workshops will provide a forum to present new, possibly unfinished work and will also give the opportunity to propose research challenges, which will help form a research agenda for the Verified Software Initiative. For further details, see the workshop web site: http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/vstte10/Workshops.html Submissions Papers must be written in English using Springer LNCS style. The page limit is 10 pages for technical papers and 5 pages for proposals of verification challenges. The proceedings will be published as a technical report. Details on the submission process are available at http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/vstte10/Workshops.html. Important Dates Submission: May 28, 2010 Notification: June 25, 2010 Final version: July 23, 2010 Workshops: August 19, 2010, 9am-1pm Chairs * VS-Theory is co-chaired by David Naumann, Stevens Institute of Technology, USA and Hongseok Yang, Queen Mary, University of London, UK * VS-Tools & Experiments is co-chaired by Tiziana Margaria, University of Potsdam, Germany and Rajeev Joshi, NASA/JPL Laboratory for Reliable Software, USA

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Call for fast abstracts: TAIC-PART (testing conference)
by John Hughes 21 May '10

21 May '10

TAIC-PART is an interesting conference on testing that takes place in wonderful surroundings in Windsor Park. I recommend it-I much enjoyed it last year. It's calling for "fast abstracts"-short papers on new results-by June 11th. It would be fun to see work on testing in the FP community represented. Why not submit something? John CALL FOR FAST ABSTRACTS: Late breaking, PhD and Tools Testing: Academic and Industrial Conference - Practice and Research Techniques (TAIC PART 2010) Windsor, United Kingdom September 3 - 5, 2010 http://www2010.taicpart.org/ Theme and Goals: ---------------- TAIC PART is a conference that aims to forge collaboration between industry and academia on the challenging and exciting problem of software testing. It is sponsored by representatives of both industry and academia, bringing together commercial and industrial software developers and users with academic researchers working on the theory and practice of software testing. The goals of TAIC PART range from the articulation of fundamental research questions in the field of software testing and analysis to practical challenges that are often faced by software developers in industry. TAIC PART is a unique event that strives to combine the important aspects of a software testing conference, workshop, and retreat. Keynote Speakers: ----------------- Dr Wolfgang Grieskamp, Microsoft, USA Prof Sir Tony Hoare, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK Prof Bertrand Meyer, ETH Zuerich, Switzerland Call for Fast Abstracts: ------------------------ We invite submission of fast abstracts with a limit of 4 pages: - Late breaking results or work in progress will be evaluated according to their ability to generate discussion and suggest interesting areas for future research. - PhD papers are for PhD students who are interested in receiving feedback about dissertation research that is an early stage. There will be a dedicated PhD session at the conference. - Tool papers must focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of software testing and analysis tools and will be judged by the technical merit, novelty, and evaluation of the tool. There will be a tools session with the opportunity to demonstrate the tools. TAIC PART 2010 solicits papers on, but is not limited to, the following areas: - Test Adequacy Criteria - Test Suite Execution - Test Coverage Monitoring - Automated Test Data Generation - Regression Testing - Automated Debugging and Fault Localization - Performance Evaluation - Static and Dynamic Analysis - Verification and Validation - Software Reliability Engineering - Model-Based Testing - Testing and Formal Methods - Testing and Model Checking - Software Testing Process - Technology Transfer Submissions: ------------ Authors should submit a PDF version of their paper through the TAIC PART 2010 paper submission site. Papers must be written in English, and prepared according to Springer's LNCS style (guidelines: http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html) All papers will be reviewed, and accepted papers will be published in a volume of the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series (LNCS). Important Dates: ---------------- * Fast abstract submission: June 11, 2010 * Fast abstract notification: June 21, 2010

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Register now for: Haskell in Leipzig (Germany), June 4.
by Johannes Waldmann 21 May '10

21 May '10

The schedule and registration for the "Haskell in Leipzig" meeting on June 4 are now on-line: http://www.iba-cg.de/hal5.html Keywords: Leksah, HXT, Hawk, Adga, lambda camp, sound synthesis. The workshop is presented by http://www.fit-leipzig.de/ , in co-operation with http://www.imn.htwk-leipzig.de/ , http://www.leipziger-medienstiftung.de/, http://www.iba-cg.de/ Best regards, Johannes Waldmann (for the Hal5 program committee)

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PhD studentships in compiler and language design for high-performance, massively parallel systems
by Stephan Herhut 17 May '10

17 May '10

We are pleased to announce the availability of funded PhD positions in the Compiler Technology and Computer Architecture group at the University of Hertfordshire. The positions comprise an open studentship and we expect prospective candidates to propose their own line of research within the group's wide area of interest. The University of Hertfordshire near London was one of the first academic institutions in the United Kingdom to offer a degree in computer science. Today, the university is the UK's leading business-facing university with strong industrial ties and an international outreach. The Compiler Technology and Computer Architecture group is part of the School of Computer Science and the Centre for Computer Science and Informatics Research. Our research is focused around the interface between software and computer architectures. We are the main contributors for the two programming languages Single Assignment C and S-Net, both of which cater for high-level specifications of concurrent programs. Single Assignment C is a functional array-programming language with a C like syntax and APL/MATLAB like programming model. The corresponding compiler suite has been in development for 15+ years. Today, it supports auto-parallelisation for a range of architectures, including legacy multi-cores and NVIDIA CUDA. Current research focuses on extending the reach of SAC to novel architectures like the University of Amsterdam's Microgrid and Intel's SCC. S-Net is a language for concurrency engineering. S-Net programs are algebraic formulae that describe the communication pattern of an algorithm on an abstract level. Using our compilation technology, we are able to generate concurrent and distributed implementations from an S-Net specification. Current research in S-Net focuses on adaptivity, real-time support and extending the platform reach. Across both languages, we are interested in the generalisation of parallel programming principles. As part of the Google summer of code, we contribute generalised high-level vector primitives to the GCC project. We work on abstractions for broad-ranged run-time systems supporting various forms of concurrency. This work applies modern operating systems aspects across various platforms including GPGPUs, FPGAs and embedded systems. Our work also embodies applications of recent advances in type theory to further enhance expressiveness and to boost run-time efficiency. Ongoing projects include work on a user-specifiable type-system for SAC and a redesign and extension of the S-Net type-system using qualified types and extensible record-types. Furthermore, we are interested in using partial evaluation and abstract interpretation techniques to solve problems that were usually addressed by type systems and SMT solvers. Adequate spoken and written English skills, as well as command of a functional and an imperative programming language are required. A good bachelor's degree is mandatory, a master's degree a plus. Our group is international and we cooperate widely. Good communication skills, an interest to present on international venues as well as the ability to play in a team are essential. Further details on the available PhD positions can be found at http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AAZ241/phd-studentships/ The deadline for applications is the end of May. However, shortlisting will start 19th of May. Details on the group can be found at the group's website http://ctca.feis.herts.ac.uk/ Previous and current projects include http://www.aether-ist.org self-adaptive computing http://www.apple-core.info multi-core architectures and programming models http://www.project-advance.eu dynamic adaptation and optimisation http://www.sac-home.org data-parallel array-programming language http://www.snet-home.org language for concurrency engineering Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact Sven-Bodo Scholz (S.Scholz(a)herts.ac.uk) to discuss potential research projects before applying. -- Stephan Herhut Centre for Computer Science and Informatics Research Science and Technology Research Institute University of Hertfordshire

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ANNOUNCE: Introducing Sifflet, visual functional programming language
by Gregory D. Weber 15 May '10

15 May '10

Introducing Sifflet -- version 0.1.5, first public release! Sifflet is a visual, functional programming language. Sifflet programmers define functions by drawing diagrams. Sifflet shows how a function call is evaluated on the diagram. It is 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 function calls are evaluated -- including recursive calls, of course. -- This is an active learning process: Sifflet doesn't overwhelm students with a huge trace of function calls; it provides only as much expansion as the student requests. - Extensive tutorial with 6,348 words and 31 pictures -- so hey, it's worth 37,348 words! (but not 37,348! words) - Number, string, and list data types. - Palette with a small number of primitive functions. - Runnable examples of compound functions. * Download: 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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