May 2011 - Haskell - Haskell.org

ANNOUNCE: ioctl 0.0.1
by Maciej Piechotka 13 Sep '15

13 Sep '15

A package for type-safe I/O control. Currently only ioctl is supported. Currently simply a extract from my tuntap fork TODO: - Return the integer as well as structure (will break the API) - Port for Windows Network.Socket.IOCtl (as soon as I manage to setup some sane environment on this platform) - Wrapping around DeviceIoControl Example (in hsc): data NotRead = NotRead instance NotRead Int where ioctlReq _ = #const FIONREAD notRead s = ioctlsocket' s NotRead Regards

2 1

Proposal to incorporate Haskell.org
by Don Stewart 16 Dec '11

16 Dec '11

Hello everyone. The haskell.org committee[1], in the interest of the long-term stability of the open source Haskell community infrastructure, has decided to incorporate haskell.org as a legal entity. This email outlines our recommendation, and seeks input from the community on this decision. The committee's proposal is that haskell.org incorporate as an entity under the Software Freedom Conservancy umbrella organization (the same group that Darcs joined recently): http://sfconservancy.org/ If we proceed with this move, haskell.org will be a legal entity, and registered as a non-profit, allowing us to more directly accept (US tax-deductible) donations, and to invest in assets that benefit the Haskell open source community. We welcome your feedback on the proposal attached below. -- Don Stewart (on behalf of the Haskell.org committee) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ = A proposal for the incorporation of Haskell.org = In recent years, haskell.org has started to receive assets, e.g. money from Google Summer Of Code, donations for Hackathons, and a Sparc machine for use in GHC development. We have also started spending this money: in particular, on hosting haskell.org itself. There is also interest in running fundraising drives for specific things such as Hackathon sponsorship and hosting fees. However, haskell.org doesn't currently exist as a legal entity, meaning that these assets have had to be held on our behalf by other entities, such as Galois and various universities. This leads to tricky situations, with no-one being sure who should decide how the haskell.org assets can be used. To solve these problems, we propose that haskell.org applies to become a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) <http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/>. The SFC is a non-profit organization that provides free financial and administrative services to open source projects. Additionally, it has 501(c)(3) status, meaning donations from the US are tax-deductible. The SFC would hold haskell.org's money and other assets, and would be able to accept donations on behalf of haskell.org. The haskell.org committee, as described here [2], will make decisions on spending assets and other decisions related to governing the non-profit. Before proceeding, we are inviting input from the community in the form of specific objections or queries regarding the plan. We've tried to answer some of the most likely questions: Q: Does this mean that my Haskell project must now be covered by a copyleft licence such as GPL? A: No, but Haskell projects using haskell.org resource should use an Open Source licence <http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical>. Q: Will it still be possible to use community.h.o to host non-open-source material, such as academic papers? A: An overall minority of such content, as is the current situation, is not a problem. Q: Will it still be possible to have job ads on the haskell.org mailing lists and website? A: Yes. Q: Will this affect our ability to host the Haskell Symposium <http://www.haskell.org/haskell-symposium/> and Industrial Haskell Group<http://industry.haskell.org/> webpages within haskell.org? A: No. Q: What will be the relationship between haskell.org and other organizations such as the Haskell Symposium and Industrial Haskell Group? A: Those organisations will continue to exist as separate entities. Q: If an umbrella non-profit organisation "The Haskell Foundation" was created, would haskell.org be able to join it? A: Yes. It's likely that in such a scenario, the Haskell Foundation would become the owner of the haskell.org domain name, with the cost divided between the members. The entity that is part of the SFC would be renamed "community.haskell.org" in order to avoid confusion. [1]: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell.org_committee [2]: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell.org_committee#Operation

5 6

ANNOUNCE: hspec-0.4.3 (color output and alternate mondaic api)
by Trystan Spangler 22 Jun '11

22 Jun '11

hspec version 0.4.3, Behavior Driven Development for Haskell, is now available! Improvements include red/yellow/green color output and writing output as the tests are running. Also, you can import Test.Hspec.Monadic rather than Test.Hspec if you want to use a WriterMonad based api. http://hackage.haskell.org/package/hspec https://github.com/trystan/hspec As always, any advice, comments, or questions are welcome, Trystan Spangler For those who would like to see an example, using the new alternate monadic api, running this program: > import Test.Hspec.Monadic > import Test.Hspec.HUnit > import Test.Hspec.QuickCheck (property) > import Test.HUnit (assertBool, assertEqual) > > main = hspec specs > > specs = describe "hspec 0.4.3" $ do > it "still allows a Bool expression to act as an example" > (replicate 5 1 == [1,1,1,1,1]) > > it "still allows HUnit assertions to act as examples" > (assertBool "lame example" True) > > it "still allows QuickCheck properties to act as examples" > (property $ \ i -> (i::Int) == i + 1 - 1) > > it "still shows a list of failed examples" > (undefined :: Bool) -- expected to fail > > it "still collects better data from failed HUnit examples" > (assertEqual "this should fail" 1 2) -- expected to fail > > it "still collects better data from failed QuickCheck examples" > (property $ \ i -> (i::Int) * 2 - 2 /= i) -- expected to fail > > it "now allows a monadic api" > (pending "I'm still not sure how to test this but this example is good evidence....") > > it "now outputs in color when writing to stdout" > (pending "I'm still not sure how to test this but trust me it works....") should send this to stdout in glorious red, yellow, and green: hspec 0.4.3 - still allows a Bool expression to act as an example - still allows HUnit assertions to act as examples - still allows QuickCheck properties to act as examples x still shows a list of failed examples FAILED [1] x still collects better data from failed HUnit examples FAILED [2] x still collects better data from failed QuickCheck examples FAILED [3] - now allows a monadic api # I'm still not sure how to test this but this example is good evidence.... - now outputs in color when writing to stdout # I'm still not sure how to test this but trust me it works.... 1) hspec 0.4.3 still shows a list of failed examples FAILED Prelude.undefined 2) hspec 0.4.3 still collects better data from failed HUnit examples FAILED this should fail expected: 1 but got: 2 3) hspec 0.4.3 still collects better data from failed QuickCheck examples FAILED *** Failed! Falsifiable (after 6 tests): 2 Finished in 0.0520 seconds 8 examples, 3 failures

1 2

ICFP Programming Contest 2011
by Eijiro Sumii 03 Jun '11

03 Jun '11

Dear functional programmers, We have published the following announcement at: http://www.icfpcontest.org/ Please enjoy, Eijiro Sumii (2011 Contest Chair) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ICFP Programming Contest 2011 http://www.icfpcontest.org/ The ICFP Programming Contest 2011 is the 14th instance of the annual programming contest series sponsored by The ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming. This year, the contest starts at 00:00 June 17 Friday UTC (= 24:00 June 16 Thursday UTC) and ends at 00:00 June 20 Monday UTC (= 24:00 June 19 Sunday UTC). Unlike in previous years, there is no 24-hour lightning division. The task description will be published in this blog when the contest starts. Solutions to the task must be submitted online before the contest ends. Details of the submission procedure will be announced along with the contest task. This is an open contest. Anybody may participate except for the contest organizers and members of the same laboratory as the the contest chair's. No advance registration or entry fee is required. Participants may form teams. A team consists of every person who contributes ideas and/or code towards a submission. Teams may have any number of members. Individuals may only be members of a single team and teams may not divide or collaborate with each other once the contest has begun. Any programming language(s) may be used as long as the submitted program can be run by the judges on a standard Linux environment with no network connection. Details of the judges' environment will be announced later. There will be prizes for the first (US$1,000) and second ($500) place teams as well as a discretionary judges' prize ($500). There will also be a total of $6,000 travel support. (The prizes and travel support are subject to the budget plan of ICFP 2011 pending approval by ACM.) In addition, the organizers will declare during the conference that: - the first place team's language is "the programming language of choice for discriminating hackers", - the second place team's language is "a fine tool for many applications", - and the team winning the judges' prize is "an extremely cool bunch of hackers". Additional announcements about the contest will be made at http://www.icfpcontest.org/. Questions can be posted as comments to the blog or e-mailed to icfpc2011-blogger AT kb.ecei.tohoku.ac.jp (please replace AT with @). We look forward to your participation! The contest organizers: Hidehiko Abe, Yumi Arai, Kenichi Asai (observer), Noriko Hirota, Atsushi Igarashi (observer), Lintaro Ina, Kazuhiro Inaba, Arisa Iwai, Chihiro Kaneko, Shinya Kawanaka, Moe Masuko, Yasuhiko Minamide (observer), Ryosuke Sato, Yu Shibata, Yu Sugawara, Takeshi Tsukada, Kanae Tsushima, Yayoi Ueda, and Eijiro Sumii (chair). ----------------------------------------------------------------------

1 1

PhD studentship in Nottingham
by Graham Hutton 31 May '11

31 May '11

Dear all, I are currently advertising a PhD studentship in functional programming -- the advert is copied below, and attached. If you know of any good candidates who many be interested in this, or there is a local mailing list for advertising such things, I would be much obliged if you could pass on the advert. Best wishes, Graham +------------------------------------------------------------------+ PhD Studentship in Functional Programming School of Computer Science University of Nottingham, UK Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD studentship in the Functional Programming Lab in the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, starting on 1st October 2011, under the supervision of Prof Graham Hutton. The suggested topic for the studentship is to develop a practical implementation of the worker/wrapper transformation, a simple but powerful unifying paradigm for program optimisation, but other ideas for possible topics are welcome too. The studentship is for three and a half years, and includes a maintenance grant of 13,590 UK pounds per year, and tuition fees. Applicants for the position will require a first-class Honours degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science and/or Mathematics, some experience in functional programming, and an aptitude for mathematical subjects. Additional desirable attributes include a Masters degree, and/or some experience in programming language semantics, implementation and optimisation. Due to the nature of the funding, the position is only open to UK citizens, or EU citizens who have resided in the UK for the last three years. The successful applicant will work under the supervision of Prof Graham Hutton in the FP Lab in Nottingham, a leading centre for research on functional programming. The group currently comprises 5 academic staff, 1 research fellow, and 10 PhD students. In order to apply, please submit the following to Prof Graham Hutton (graham.hutton(a)nottingham.ac.uk) by 24th June 2011: an up-to-date copy of your CV (including the results of all your University examinations to date) along with a brief covering letter that describes your experience in functional programming, your reasons for wishing to pursue a PhD in this area, and any ideas you have regarding possible research directions. Closing date for applications: 24th June 2011. +------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- Graham Hutton Functional Programming Lab School of Computer Science University of Nottingham, UK http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gmh This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment. Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham. This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system: you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation.

1 0

DTP 2011: Second call for talks
by Wouter Swierstra 31 May '11

31 May '11

Dependently Typed Programming 2011 Call for Papers 27 of August 2011 Nijmegen, The Netherland In association with ITP 2011 Deadline for submission: 10 June 2011 http://www.cs.ru.nl/dtp11 Dependently typed programming is here today: where will it go tomorrow? On the one hand, dependent type theories have grown programming languages; on the other hand, the type systems of programming languages like Haskell (and even C#) are incorporating some kinds of type-level data. When types involve data, they can capture relationships between data, internalising invariants necessary for appropriate computation. When data describe types, we can express patterns of programming in code. We're beginning to see how to take advantage of the power and precision which dependent types afford, but there are still plenty of problems to address and issues to resolve. The design space is large: this workshop is a forum for researchers who are exploring it. We hope that the workshop will attract people who work on the design and implementation of dependently typed programming languages and development environments, or who are using existing systems to develop dependently typed programs and libraries. * Submissions * If you want to give a talk or a demo at the workshop, please send us a title and an abstract before 10 June 2011 to w.swierstra{at}cs.ru.nl. Slots will be of 30 minutes (unless you ask for less). We will try to fit as many talks as possible. We aim to publish post-proceedings containing refereed papers related to the topic of the workshop in a suitable journal. More information about this will come after the workshop. * Important Dates * 10 June 2011: Submission deadline 25 June 2011: Notification of acceptance 27 August 2011: DTP workshop * Program Committee * Ana Bove, Chalmers, Sweden Matthieu Sozeau, INRIA, France Wouter Swierstra, Radboud University, The Netherlands

1 0

Student Internships for Parallel Haskell Programming at NII, Tokyo
by Sebastian Fischer 31 May '11

31 May '11

As part of my research fellowship at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, I announce the availability of student internships for up to three months between July and September 2011. Qualified applicants are enrolled in a Masters or Phd program, have a firm grasp of the Haskell programming language, and, ideally, know the different approaches to parallel and concurrent programming available in the Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System (GHC). Their task is to support research on combinators for parallel programming by developing and comparing efficient implementations. The available fund covers sojourn costs but no travel expenses. It is meant to foster collaboration between Germany and Japan but qualified students from other countries may also be funded. If you want to spend the summer hacking Haskell in Tokyo please do not hesitate to contact me off list. Feel free to write even if you are unsure whether you are qualified or have any other questions regarding the internship. Best regards, Sebastian http://research.nii.ac.jp/members/fischer/ P.S. Information about the status after the earthquake is available on the Local Information page of ICFP'11: http://www.biglab.org/icfp11local/index.html Additionally, you may want to follow recent news in English by Mainichi Daily News and NHK World: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/ http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/

1 0

ANNOUNCE: time-recurrence-0.4.2
by Chris Heller 31 May '11

31 May '11

I've been busy making major changes to my time library: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/time-recurrence Things are still under heavy development. This release is to show the direction the library is heading in. A major shift in the design has been made, and the current work is an attempt at simplifying the recurring time manipulations into the smallest number of function possible, then providing some useful convenience methods on top of that. Version 0.4.2 definitely feels more Haskell-y. Here is a simple example of how things are done: > date = parse822Time "Tue, 02 Sep 1997 09:00:00 -0500" > take 5 $ repeatSchedule' dailyUTC{interval = toInterval 10, moment = date} > [1997-09-02 14:00:00 UTC > ,1997-09-12 14:00:00 UTC > ,1997-09-22 14:00:00 UTC > ,1997-10-02 14:00:00 UTC > ,1997-10-12 14:00:00 UTC] In addition a test suite has been added to the package, it currently is using HUnit test-framework, and the Cabal 1.10 stdio test suite facility. Feedback, suggestions and pull requests are always welcome. -Chris

1 0

ANNOUNCE: Clipboard-2.2.0. System clipboard interface.
by Daniel Díaz Casanueva 30 May '11

30 May '11

Hi all, I've just uploaded Clipboard-2.2.0 to Hackage [1]. Clipboard [2] is a library that provides an interface for the system clipboard. The API is very simple, so anyone can use it without knowing of low-level Win32 API. Currently, this library only works on a Windows OS, due to its dependency on the Win32 library. Features for 2.2.0 version: * Added compatibility with the unicode character set, while reading the content of the clipboard. * Unicode character set is the new standard for setting the clipboard content. * Fixed the function 'modifyClipboardString'. * Some changes in documentation. I want to give thanks to Artyom Kazak, who sent me the patch of Unicode compatibilty and the fix for 'modifyClipboardString' function. -- References [1] - Hackage site - http://hackage.haskell.org [2] - Clipboard site - http://sites.google.com/site/dheltadiaz/packages/clipboard

1 0

Position Available: Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship
by Serdar Tasiran 26 May '11

26 May '11

Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship on Concurrent Software Verification A PhD student position is available in the Department of Computer Engineering at Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey. The student will carry out research on the verification of concurrent software. This proof system will generalize the QED proof system described in our paper titled "A Calculus of Atomic Actions" that appeared in POPL '09. The project is funded by a Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship -- one of 18 such positions in Europe in 2010. The position is supervised by Dr. Serdar Tasiran of Koc University, and Dr. Shaz Qadeer of Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA. See the link below for further information. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/global/open-phd-positions… The Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship and Koc University will provide to the PhD student the following benefits: - A monthly stipend (3000 TL/month net, roughly 1250 Euros/month) - Annual summer schools at Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK. An opportunity to interact with world-class researchers. - Paid internship opportunities at Microsoft Research Laboratories. Scholars are paid in addition to their scholarship bursary. - A laptop computer and software provided by Microsoft Research. - Housing and health insurance. Please contact Serdar Tasiran (stasiran(a)ku.edu.tr) to obtain more information and apply. Serdar Tasiran http://home.ku.edu.tr/~stasiran http://theorem.ku.edu.tr

1 0