Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2021-01-30 Thread 'William J. Bowman' via Racket Users
For the curious/eager, I've submitted a PR with my initial implementation 
redesigned along the lines of the discussion here:

https://github.com/racket/racket/pull/3670

--
William J. Bowman

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 06:14:10PM -0400, Ben Greenman wrote:
> On 10/31/20, jackh...@gmail.com  wrote:
> > I'm not sure, but I have a feeling Ben's suggestion to make them functions
> > instead of macros wasn't about the performance implications of macros.
> 
> Right. I was only thinking that macros are hard to build on. But then,
> I can use dictof/proc here.
> 
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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-31 Thread Ben Greenman
On 10/31/20, jackh...@gmail.com  wrote:
> I'm not sure, but I have a feeling Ben's suggestion to make them functions
> instead of macros wasn't about the performance implications of macros.

Right. I was only thinking that macros are hard to build on. But then,
I can use dictof/proc here.

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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-31 Thread jackh...@gmail.com
I'm not sure, but I have a feeling Ben's suggestion to make them functions 
instead of macros wasn't about the performance implications of macros. I 
think it was about this particular symmetry:

- A (list 1 'apple "banana") is a (list/c number? symbol? string?)
- A (hash 'a 1 'b "foo") is a (dictof 'a number? 'b string?)

That is, when the keys are known statically, all the functions for creating 
dictionaries and hashes typically go with a flat and alternating sequence 
of key-value arguments. I think a contract combinator for dicts where the 
keys are known should have the same shape.

One other point: dictof is a confusing name. We would have list/c and 
listof, vector/c and vectorof, and hash/c and dictof. And the first two 
pairs would make the exact opposite decision as the third pair about which 
name is for the heterogeneous known-size case and which is for homogeneous 
collections.

Honestly I'd suggest naming it heterogeneous-dict/c. The contract will 
almost always span multiple lines no matter how long a name you pick, and 
I'm sick and tired of guessing which one of list/c, listof, *list/c, and 
list*of is the one I actually want. Words are underrated.
On Friday, October 30, 2020 at 12:43:02 PM UTC-7 William J. Bowman wrote:

> Thanks for the feedback! Some of these were not concerns for my use case, 
> so I’ll do a bit more design before submitting something.
>
> -- 
> Sent from my phoneamajig
>
> > On Oct 30, 2020, at 12:36, George Neuner  wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >> On 10/30/2020 3:08 PM, William J. Bowman wrote:
> >> Let me aid this discussion by copying in the ~10 lintes of code in 
> question:
> >> 
> >> > (define-syntax (dictof syn)
> >> > (syntax-parse syn
> >> > [(_ (k:id pred?) ...)
> >> > (quasisyntax/loc syn
> >> > (dictof/proc `((k . ,pred?) ...)))]))
> >> > > (define ((dictof/proc spec) h)
> >> > (and (eq? (dict-keys h) (dict-keys spec))
> >> > (for/and ([(k pred?) (in-dict spec)])
> >> > (pred? (dict-ref h k)
> >> 
> >> The macro is merely a syntactic transformation to 1 line of code that 
> implements
> >> the functionality of the contract at run-time.
> >> Is there some reason to avoid macros in this particular case?
> > 
> > There's rarely any problem with macros that only provide syntactic sugar.
> > 
> > The issues wrt contracts are how heavy are the dictionary functions. The 
> FOR loop is concerning because the check time is proportional to the size 
> of the dictionary [again recalling that contracts live on in release code].
> > 
> > For performance it would be better to enforce the predicate on values as 
> they are entered, and then assume anything already in the dictionary is 
> correct. It is sensible to provide a function that validates the whole 
> dictionary, but I would make it something the programmer has to invoke 
> deliberately rather than a contract to be enforced at (even just 1st in 
> module) mention of the dictionary.
> > 
> > YMMV,
> > George
> > 
> > -- 
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> Groups "Racket Users" group.
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> .
>

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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-30 Thread William J. Bowman
Thanks for the feedback! Some of these were not concerns for my use case, so 
I’ll do a bit more design before submitting something.

-- 
Sent from my phoneamajig

> On Oct 30, 2020, at 12:36, George Neuner  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 10/30/2020 3:08 PM, William J. Bowman wrote:
>> Let me aid this discussion by copying in the ~10 lintes of code in question:
>> 
>> > (define-syntax (dictof syn)
>> >   (syntax-parse syn
>> > [(_ (k:id pred?) ...)
>> >  (quasisyntax/loc syn
>> >(dictof/proc `((k . ,pred?) ...)))]))
>> > > (define ((dictof/proc spec) h)
>> >   (and (eq? (dict-keys h) (dict-keys spec))
>> >(for/and ([(k pred?) (in-dict spec)])
>> >  (pred? (dict-ref h k)
>> 
>> The macro is merely a syntactic transformation to 1 line of code that 
>> implements
>> the functionality of the contract at run-time.
>> Is there some reason to avoid macros in this particular case?
> 
> There's rarely any problem with macros that only provide syntactic sugar.
> 
> The issues wrt contracts are how heavy are the dictionary functions.  The FOR 
> loop is concerning because the check time is proportional to the size of the 
> dictionary  [again recalling that contracts live on in release code].
> 
> For performance it would be better to enforce the predicate on values as they 
> are entered, and then assume anything already in the dictionary is correct.  
> It is sensible to provide a function that validates the whole dictionary, but 
> I would make it something the programmer has to invoke deliberately rather 
> than a contract to be enforced at (even just 1st in module) mention of the 
> dictionary.
> 
> YMMV,
> George
> 
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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-30 Thread George Neuner



On 10/30/2020 3:08 PM, William J. Bowman wrote:

Let me aid this discussion by copying in the ~10 lintes of code in question:

> (define-syntax (dictof syn)
>   (syntax-parse syn
> [(_ (k:id pred?) ...)
>  (quasisyntax/loc syn
>(dictof/proc `((k . ,pred?) ...)))]))
> 
> (define ((dictof/proc spec) h)

>   (and (eq? (dict-keys h) (dict-keys spec))
>(for/and ([(k pred?) (in-dict spec)])
>  (pred? (dict-ref h k)

The macro is merely a syntactic transformation to 1 line of code that implements
the functionality of the contract at run-time.
Is there some reason to avoid macros in this particular case?


There's rarely any problem with macros that only provide syntactic sugar.

The issues wrt contracts are how heavy are the dictionary functions.  
The FOR loop is concerning because the check time is proportional to the 
size of the dictionary  [again recalling that contracts live on in 
release code].


For performance it would be better to enforce the predicate on values as 
they are entered, and then assume anything already in the dictionary is 
correct.  It is sensible to provide a function that validates the whole 
dictionary, but I would make it something the programmer has to invoke 
deliberately rather than a contract to be enforced at (even just 1st in 
module) mention of the dictionary.


YMMV,
George

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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-30 Thread Robby Findler
On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 2:08 PM William J. Bowman 
wrote:

> Let me aid this discussion by copying in the ~10 lintes of code in
> question:
>
> > (define-syntax (dictof syn)
> >   (syntax-parse syn
> > [(_ (k:id pred?) ...)
> >  (quasisyntax/loc syn
> >(dictof/proc `((k . ,pred?) ...)))]))
> >
> > (define ((dictof/proc spec) h)
> >   (and (eq? (dict-keys h) (dict-keys spec))
> >(for/and ([(k pred?) (in-dict spec)])
> >  (pred? (dict-ref h k)
>
> The macro is merely a syntactic transformation to 1 line of code that
> implements
> the functionality of the contract at run-time.
> Is there some reason to avoid macros in this particular case?
>
>
I don't think so.

But I do think that you'd need more checking so things like (dictof
(,(something scary) i-am-not-a-procedure)) give reasonable error messages.
And eq? is probably not the right comparison (consider large integers for
example).

Robby


> --
> William J. Bowman
>
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 03:04:04PM -0400, George Neuner wrote:
> >
> > On 10/30/2020 1:14 PM, William J. Bowman wrote:
> > > Thanks! One follow-up:
> > >
> > > > 1. make these functions, not macros
> > > The main implementation is a procedure, but I think I need a macro to
> get the
> > > syntactic interface I want.
> > >
> > > Is there some reason to avoid macros?
> >
> > You certainly can use macros in the implementation, but just remember
> that
> > macros evaluate at compile time and most contracts have to be checked at
> > runtime: so a contract can't *exclusively* be a macro ... runtime code
> has
> > to be generated.
> >
> > Robby's comment about code size is relevant also:  contracts are not
> debug
> > mode only like assertions in C ... Racket's contracts live on in release
> > mode compiles, so you want to minimize the amount of runtime code
> required
> > to implement them.
> >
> > George
>
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> .
>

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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-30 Thread William J. Bowman
Let me aid this discussion by copying in the ~10 lintes of code in question:

> (define-syntax (dictof syn)
>   (syntax-parse syn
> [(_ (k:id pred?) ...)
>  (quasisyntax/loc syn
>(dictof/proc `((k . ,pred?) ...)))]))
> 
> (define ((dictof/proc spec) h)
>   (and (eq? (dict-keys h) (dict-keys spec))
>(for/and ([(k pred?) (in-dict spec)])
>  (pred? (dict-ref h k)

The macro is merely a syntactic transformation to 1 line of code that implements
the functionality of the contract at run-time.
Is there some reason to avoid macros in this particular case?

--
William J. Bowman

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 03:04:04PM -0400, George Neuner wrote:
> 
> On 10/30/2020 1:14 PM, William J. Bowman wrote:
> > Thanks! One follow-up:
> > 
> > > 1. make these functions, not macros
> > The main implementation is a procedure, but I think I need a macro to get 
> > the
> > syntactic interface I want.
> > 
> > Is there some reason to avoid macros?
> 
> You certainly can use macros in the implementation, but just remember that
> macros evaluate at compile time and most contracts have to be checked at
> runtime: so a contract can't *exclusively* be a macro ... runtime code has
> to be generated.
> 
> Robby's comment about code size is relevant also:  contracts are not debug
> mode only like assertions in C ... Racket's contracts live on in release
> mode compiles, so you want to minimize the amount of runtime code required
> to implement them.
> 
> George

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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-30 Thread George Neuner



On 10/30/2020 1:14 PM, William J. Bowman wrote:

Thanks! One follow-up:

> 1. make these functions, not macros
The main implementation is a procedure, but I think I need a macro to get the
syntactic interface I want.

Is there some reason to avoid macros?


You certainly can use macros in the implementation, but just remember 
that macros evaluate at compile time and most contracts have to be 
checked at runtime: so a contract can't *exclusively* be a macro ... 
runtime code has to be generated.


Robby's comment about code size is relevant also:  contracts are not 
debug mode only like assertions in C ... Racket's contracts live on in 
release mode compiles, so you want to minimize the amount of runtime 
code required to implement them.


George

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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-30 Thread Philip McGrath
I've wanted this several times (and written more than one ad-hoc partial
version): a general-purpose combinator would be great!

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 1:14 PM William J. Bowman 
wrote:

> > 1. make these functions, not macros
> The main implementation is a procedure, but I think I need a macro to get
> the
> syntactic interface I want.


Personally, I'd think about an approach like `->` and `dynamic->*`: a nice
syntactic interface that covers most use-cases paired with a
somewhat-less-ergonomic procedural interface for more comprehensive
functionality, e.g. when aspects of the contract to be generated aren't
statically known.

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 11:06 AM Ben Greenman 
wrote:

> 2. make "at least" the default behavior for dictof, add an option to
> override (#:exact-keys?), and remove rho-dictof
>

To go a step further, I think there are two dimensions of "exactness":

   1. Are keys other than those specified permitted?
   2. Is a particular key required or optional?

There are some combinations of answers to those questions that I think make
for poor API design, but, in many of the cases when I've wanted these types
of contracts, I've been working with messy pre-existing APIs (often JSON),
which inhabit a whole lot of different points in this space.

An even-more-general way of asking "Are keys other than those specified
permitted?" would be, "What is the contract for a key–value pair not
otherwise specified?", where `any/c` and `none/c` are important special
cases. Even more generally, this could be a function to produce a contract
à la `hash/dc`: I'll see if I can remember an example, but I think I've
encountered APIs where this would have been useful.

As far as "Is a particular key required or optional?", I'd want a nice
syntax to specify this for all keys (I don't have a considered opinion
about what the default should be), but I'd also want support for specifying
it at the level of the individual key–value pair.

Of course, even an implementation that didn't support all of this would be
useful!

-Philip

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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-30 Thread Robby Findler
I didn't look at the code yet myself, but generally you want to minimize
the amount of code you compile into (and so using a function is pretty
minimal). Another reason is that a lot of stuff "just works" when you use
functions (because they would be documented as functions and so come with
certain expectations). Debugging stuff, other little details.

But in the case of the contract system you might want macros because that
way you can cooperate with the check syntax blame annotations (which need
work in other parts of the contract library).

Ben: if you have an example of the bad hash/dc error message I'd be
interested to see it.

Robby


On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 12:14 PM William J. Bowman 
wrote:

> Thanks! One follow-up:
>
> > 1. make these functions, not macros
> The main implementation is a procedure, but I think I need a macro to get
> the
> syntactic interface I want.
>
> Is there some reason to avoid macros?
>
> --
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> .
>

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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-30 Thread William J. Bowman
Thanks! One follow-up:

> 1. make these functions, not macros
The main implementation is a procedure, but I think I need a macro to get the
syntactic interface I want.

Is there some reason to avoid macros?

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Re: [racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-30 Thread Ben Greenman
On 10/29/20, William J. Bowman  wrote:
> I'm considering implementing, maybe as a library or a pull-request to
> racket/dict, contracts for (partially) specifying which keys exist in a
> dictionary and a contract for the value on that key.

Great!

Please make the contract error messages point out the bad key and bad
value. The error messages from hash/dc are usually too big for me, and
I end up moving my key-check and value-check contracts into a function
that checks things one-by-one.

(Maybe hash/dc can give better errors ... I never looked into a fix.)

> I've got a quick prototype here:
>
>   https://gist.github.com/wilbowma/7e97c8a38130c720568d008b288466f0
>
>   (dictof (id expr) ...)
>   A contract for a dictionary that contains exactly the keys id ... that map
> to
>   values that satisfy the contracts expr ... (respectively).
>
>   (rho-dictof (id expr) ...)
>   A contract for a dictionary that contains at least the keys id ... that
> map to
>   values that satisfy the contracts expr ... (respectively).
>
> Before I start documenting and making it a thing, I thought I'd solicit
> feedback.

Two comments:

1. make these functions, not macros

2. make "at least" the default behavior for dictof, add an option to
override (#:exact-keys?), and remove rho-dictof

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[racket-users] Contracts for (partially) specifying dictionary key -> value-predicates

2020-10-29 Thread William J. Bowman
I'm considering implementing, maybe as a library or a pull-request to
racket/dict, contracts for (partially) specifying which keys exist in a
dictionary and a contract for the value on that key.
I've got a quick prototype here:

  https://gist.github.com/wilbowma/7e97c8a38130c720568d008b288466f0

  (dictof (id expr) ...)
  A contract for a dictionary that contains exactly the keys id ... that map to
  values that satisfy the contracts expr ... (respectively).
  
  (rho-dictof (id expr) ...)
  A contract for a dictionary that contains at least the keys id ... that map to
  values that satisfy the contracts expr ... (respectively).

Before I start documenting and making it a thing, I thought I'd solicit
feedback.

-- 
William J. Bowman

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