David
> 1) JAVA -- Are there any plans to compile Haskell into byte codes for
> execution on the Java Virtual Machine? The Java issue is very important.
I know of a couple of prototypes of such a thing, one at Yale, and one at
Nottingham. It is clearly do-able. It's pretty heavyweight, though: every
thunk (i.e. nearly every sub-expression) tuns into a new class. I doubt it
would be fast.
I don't know of anyone who has seriously committed to doing this "for real";
i.e. a full-scale, supported, implementation.
> 2) CORBA --How does the concept of objects or agents play in the Haskell
> community? Here I am (loosely) referring to an agent as a free running
> process that does things including receiving messages (or method
> invocations) from others. My interest here is trying to see how Haskell
> programs fit or can be fit into the Corba model.
I'm *much* more gung-ho about this. I've been working with Erik Meijer
to allow Haskell programs to interact with COM objects, and CORBA is the
same basic idea. COM/CORBA inter-work gracefully with Java too.
So far we can write Haskell programs that "script" COM objects. We are
working on encapsulating Haskell programs as COM objects. I don't know
enough about CORBA to know how much work it would be to do the same exercise
for CORBA, but I bet that once it's done for COM it'd be 90% done for CORBA.
> 3) Scripting language -- We bumped into Haskell while looking for a
> scripting tool in which it was "easy" to write expressions and "high" level
> statements that one would like to make "outside" of a programming
> environment. Scripting languages like Perl, Basic, etc. look just like
> programming languages to me; Perl is undisciplined and Basic is weak. Will
> engineers be able to deal with Haskell? Is there a strategy in which an
> engineer can learn a useful subset of Haskell, and grow into it as need be?
> I am unconvinced by arguments such as "this perfectly ordinary Yale
> graduate student learned Haskell in just 8 days."
Yes, the biggest obstacle is one of education. I believe that it's more
that Haskell is simply unfamiliar, and requires a different way of thinking,
rather than that it's hard. But it should be a good scripting language.
> 4) Concurrency -- I saw that one of the compilers supported Concurrent
> Haskell. I don't recall seeing any mention of it in any of the material I
> have. Have I missed it?
Yes, the Glasow Haskell Compiler supports concurrency. There's a paper
that describes how and why
"Concurrent Haskell" at
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~simonpj/papers.html
> If anyone has time, I would love to talk about this over the phone. I'm
> perfectly happy to carry on an email dialog. In the meantime I will learn
> more about Haskell on my own.
By all means phone me: +44-141-330-4500.
Simon Peyton Jones
