[Haskell-cafe] Everything but the lazyness - idea for force/delay lists

[Brian Hulley]

minh thu wrote:
> hi
> in fact, i think that for a while ...
> moreover, i thought to translate to some kind of readable c (because
> there s so much c libs all around).
> i think it's even possible to retain laziness where it's ok ( for data
> structure essentially).

Hi Thu -

Someone pointed out (offlist) a useful paper by Phil Wadler "How to add 
laziness to a strict language without even being odd" which shows how 
laziness can be used without needing a lifted type system.

Once you've understood the subtleties of the FFI, it's relatively easy to 
use it link to C libs.

>
> is-it possible to know what you're doing at metamilk ?

Well I'd tell you if I knew myself! :-)

Seriously though, at the moment my aim is to develop an integrated 
programming environment for a language similar to Haskell, either Haskell 
itself or a non-lazy version of it, also with some syntactic modifications 
to make it easier to use. It's in very early stages though. I'm trying as 
much as possible to write everything from scratch (including the GUI) in 
Haskell so I can see what the advantages/disadvantages of Haskell are and 
where improvements in the syntax would be useful.

My experience so far is that the typeclasses and existentials that Haskell 
supports are an advantage over OCaml or SML, but that the lazyness is a real 
nusiance but with some extra effort it's possible to mostly get rid of it.

Regards, Brian.

>
> mt
>
> 2006/6/13, Brian Hulley <brianh at metamilk.com>:
>> Hi -
>>
>> I've been thinking about how to get an extremely fast language with
>> all the benefits of Haskell ie completely pure with no side effects,
>> but with monads, higher order functions, type classes etc, but
>> without the lazyness.


-- 
Logic empowers us and Love gives us purpose.
Yet still phantoms restless for eras long past,
congealed in the present in unthought forms,
strive mightily unseen to destroy us.

http://www.metamilk.com