Mutable Algorithms in Immutable Languages, Part 1(tel.github.io)
tel.github.io
Mutable Algorithms in Immutable Languages, Part 1
http://tel.github.io/2014/07/12/mutable_algorithms_in_immutable_languges_part_1/
41 comments
I do work in Haskell.
At the end of the day, you still write some stateful, imperative code.
It's just that your utility/work functions are pure, which means that you have predictable side-effects: you've stuck them all in one (imperative) place, or perhaps a couple places, but you're guaranteed to know where they are because the type system enforces notating which code has the ability to cause side effects. (Makes it easy to grep on type signatures, for example.)
Most of my workload is dominated by high level concerns: correctness, large-scale data flow, coordination of state, and security.
The purity of functions means that I explain all of the constraints/solutions of those problems in pieces, which I then compose with a clear data flow between them (since they can't have shared, mutable state), and only at the end, lift them to operate on the state of the system (in a stateful, imperative block).
This way of programming gives me much more confidence in replacing pieces of the code without worrying about the side effects, because the side effects are predictably related to that code.
At the end of the day, that predictability of side effects makes the majority of my work MUCH easier, even if it adds complexity to some low level data manipulation.
I easily write 10x the high level code I do low level code, so a 20% savings on that code, even if I double the complexity of low level code, is a net savings on my time/effort.
tl;dr: Functional programming is a productivity booster if most of your work is of a high level nature, even if it makes low level manipulations harder to do. Interfacing with low level imperative code can be (and is) regularly done, to get the best of both worlds.
At the end of the day, you still write some stateful, imperative code.
It's just that your utility/work functions are pure, which means that you have predictable side-effects: you've stuck them all in one (imperative) place, or perhaps a couple places, but you're guaranteed to know where they are because the type system enforces notating which code has the ability to cause side effects. (Makes it easy to grep on type signatures, for example.)
Most of my workload is dominated by high level concerns: correctness, large-scale data flow, coordination of state, and security.
The purity of functions means that I explain all of the constraints/solutions of those problems in pieces, which I then compose with a clear data flow between them (since they can't have shared, mutable state), and only at the end, lift them to operate on the state of the system (in a stateful, imperative block).
This way of programming gives me much more confidence in replacing pieces of the code without worrying about the side effects, because the side effects are predictably related to that code.
At the end of the day, that predictability of side effects makes the majority of my work MUCH easier, even if it adds complexity to some low level data manipulation.
I easily write 10x the high level code I do low level code, so a 20% savings on that code, even if I double the complexity of low level code, is a net savings on my time/effort.
tl;dr: Functional programming is a productivity booster if most of your work is of a high level nature, even if it makes low level manipulations harder to do. Interfacing with low level imperative code can be (and is) regularly done, to get the best of both worlds.
This is certainly an intriguing answer, and makes me want to try Haskell sometime, but it also makes me wonder if I can't get the same benefits, with a little effort and discipline, in a "semi-functional" language such as something in the ML family or even (if I can live without static typing) Lisp.
In fact, I've always made a point, when working in a semi-functional language, of writing as much code functionally as possible. My experience is that it has the same benefits as you describe. So I don't know how much more there is to be gotten by actually switching to Haskell. My guess is, most of the additional benefit would come from the type system. But maybe I would be motivated to write even more code functionally.
In fact, I've always made a point, when working in a semi-functional language, of writing as much code functionally as possible. My experience is that it has the same benefits as you describe. So I don't know how much more there is to be gotten by actually switching to Haskell. My guess is, most of the additional benefit would come from the type system. But maybe I would be motivated to write even more code functionally.
All being a "functional language" means is that it's easy to write with a particular paradigm in the language.
You certainly can write similar code in ML, Java, or C - or whatever language strikes your fancy. It just helps when the type system is lined up with that goal, such as forcing you to denote where side-effects occur, and ensuring only functions that expect side-effect based code can operate on them. (For what it's worth, I've used both ML and Scheme to write similar style code as part of a programming languages class; and similarly, the C code I write relies on the functional ideas as much as possible.)
I just like the combination of Haskell's syntax and type system, so I prefer it to something like C (where functions aren't exactly a first class datatype, and the type system is somewhat weaker).
You certainly can write similar code in ML, Java, or C - or whatever language strikes your fancy. It just helps when the type system is lined up with that goal, such as forcing you to denote where side-effects occur, and ensuring only functions that expect side-effect based code can operate on them. (For what it's worth, I've used both ML and Scheme to write similar style code as part of a programming languages class; and similarly, the C code I write relies on the functional ideas as much as possible.)
I just like the combination of Haskell's syntax and type system, so I prefer it to something like C (where functions aren't exactly a first class datatype, and the type system is somewhat weaker).
I just started to work with Haskell seriously, and after some trouble I discovered exactly the same development approach as DerpDerpDerp. However since I am not yet experienced I wish I had an "observer" to print debug messages (I know that there is a debugger in EclipseFP but I prefer Emacs for performance reasons). With observer I mean a compiler pragma that lets me print Haskell values without violating the functional nature of the code.
By the way, you don't need to live without static typing in Lisp. Shen provides a powerful type-safe layer on top of Lisp.
http://www.shenlanguage.org/learn-shen/types/types_functions...
By the way, you don't need to live without static typing in Lisp. Shen provides a powerful type-safe layer on top of Lisp.
http://www.shenlanguage.org/learn-shen/types/types_functions...
If you want to be pure, you can add a strict WriterT to your monad stack, or something similar.
If you don't mind temporary impurity, Debug.Trace provides some helper functions, but they call unsafePerformIO, which can do unexpected things.
If you don't mind temporary impurity, Debug.Trace provides some helper functions, but they call unsafePerformIO, which can do unexpected things.
Many of the same effects can be obtained using even non-functional languages in a disciplined way. However, many of the best strategies and patterns for constructing pure, stateless software are enshrined in the Haskell standard libraries.
Once you learn the techniques and programming styles of Haskell, you can certainly apply those ideas elsewhere, but they lose a lot of their power when you (or another developer on the same code base) start "cheating".
Once you learn the techniques and programming styles of Haskell, you can certainly apply those ideas elsewhere, but they lose a lot of their power when you (or another developer on the same code base) start "cheating".
The standard counter-argument is that by enforcing purity, Haskell improves encapsulation and the ability to reason about the program (see paeans about equational reasoning [1]), and prevents all the myriad classes of bugs associated with mutable state - thus greatly improving productivity. (The same applies to its more precise type system in general.) I'm not sure how much I believe it, but some people swear by it...
[1] http://www.haskellforall.com/2013/12/equational-reasoning.ht...
[1] http://www.haskellforall.com/2013/12/equational-reasoning.ht...
It depends on your toolbox. FP (Haskell-FP anyway) appears at first to hobble a lot of mutable algorithms, but (a) it has its own toolbox which has its own strengths and (b) you can embed mutability in such a way to use all of your standard mutable algorithms just the same.
From a personal perspective, I program a lot in Haskell and I find it perfectly fluent.
Just don't expect to take an algorithm predicted on assumptions of a particular memory model and translate it unmodified without at least using the embedding trick I mentioned above.
---
Fortunately, you're in luck. The whole point of this series is to culminate in a description of the "embedding trick" I referenced above. Part 2 is written and being edited now. It introduces a slow, simple, buggy way of writing Union/Find "purely".
Part 3 will fix the bug and then explore a fast embedding trick.
From a personal perspective, I program a lot in Haskell and I find it perfectly fluent.
Just don't expect to take an algorithm predicted on assumptions of a particular memory model and translate it unmodified without at least using the embedding trick I mentioned above.
---
Fortunately, you're in luck. The whole point of this series is to culminate in a description of the "embedding trick" I referenced above. Part 2 is written and being edited now. It introduces a slow, simple, buggy way of writing Union/Find "purely".
Part 3 will fix the bug and then explore a fast embedding trick.
For a fun mutable algorithm to test this with, I'd be interested in seeing an implementation of Knuth's Dancing Links.
For that matter, I'm curious on any performance comparisons between algorithms such as the DLX and any "FP" equivalent. This already exist?
For that matter, I'm curious on any performance comparisons between algorithms such as the DLX and any "FP" equivalent. This already exist?
Sticking to traditional computer science (i.e., ignoring constants, caching, and other details, and just sticking to Big-O analysis), it is easy to show, or indeed easy to simply see that any mutable algorithm can be represented in a purely functional way by creating a balanced tree that represents memory and can be written to and read from by index. All reading and writing operations that treat the tree as simply an expanse of RAM are O(log n), vs. O(1) of direct RAM access. Therefore, pure functional programs can simulate any impure algorithm with a slowdown no worse than a log n factor.
Again, let me emphasize this is a worst-case analysis. Many common algorithms are equivalent regardless, and that's part of the reason tel specifically names Union/Find as such an algorithm, as it's actually somewhat rare to encounter one where there isn't a Big-O equivalent algorithm that is pure. Pure functional algorithms often require some modestly clever amortization to get there, but that's perfectly valid both in theory and in practice (many beloved "imperative" structures have amortized complexities, too, including such basics as a hash table).
In practice pure functional can sometimes come with larger constants; whether they hit you in practice depends on your use case and, often, sensitivity to garbage collection pauses.
In light of all that, I think it would be fair to say that your question is somewhat ill-defined. You can really only compare particular algorithms against each other, because there's no trivial equivalence between "imperative" and "pure functional" algorithms. Plus, the barrier between the two in practice is quite fungible... especially in a garbage-collected imperative language nothing stops you from using a "functional" algorithm, and every practical "functional" language will give you a way of running "imperative" algorithms directly. (Yes, even Haskell. But tel is building up to that. I won't give it away yet. Stay tuned.)
Again, let me emphasize this is a worst-case analysis. Many common algorithms are equivalent regardless, and that's part of the reason tel specifically names Union/Find as such an algorithm, as it's actually somewhat rare to encounter one where there isn't a Big-O equivalent algorithm that is pure. Pure functional algorithms often require some modestly clever amortization to get there, but that's perfectly valid both in theory and in practice (many beloved "imperative" structures have amortized complexities, too, including such basics as a hash table).
In practice pure functional can sometimes come with larger constants; whether they hit you in practice depends on your use case and, often, sensitivity to garbage collection pauses.
In light of all that, I think it would be fair to say that your question is somewhat ill-defined. You can really only compare particular algorithms against each other, because there's no trivial equivalence between "imperative" and "pure functional" algorithms. Plus, the barrier between the two in practice is quite fungible... especially in a garbage-collected imperative language nothing stops you from using a "functional" algorithm, and every practical "functional" language will give you a way of running "imperative" algorithms directly. (Yes, even Haskell. But tel is building up to that. I won't give it away yet. Stay tuned.)
My question may have been ill defined, but your answer was awesome. :)
I have to confess your "easy to show/see" isn't immediately obvious to me yet. However, that is as likely because I haven't tried hard to see as anything else. This post is between other things I'm trying to get done. Poorly already, digging into this is something I fear would not help.
I am interested, though, so more pointers and explanations would be greatly appreciated.
I have to confess your "easy to show/see" isn't immediately obvious to me yet. However, that is as likely because I haven't tried hard to see as anything else. This post is between other things I'm trying to get done. Poorly already, digging into this is something I fear would not help.
I am interested, though, so more pointers and explanations would be greatly appreciated.
Regarding the "easy to see":
1) Take your algorithm that involves updates to memory.
2) Split it up so that "memory" is represented by an ADT - in the original imperative setting, it's logically a hash table - O(1) read and write.
3) Replace that ADT with a binary tree. Now you have O(lg(n)) read and write.
4) If the previous algorithm was O(f(n)), it can't do any particular thing more than O(f(n)) times, including memory access. So in the worst case, you've made O(f(n)) things take O(lg(m)) times as long, so the new algorithm must be in O(f(n) * lg(m)).
1) Take your algorithm that involves updates to memory.
2) Split it up so that "memory" is represented by an ADT - in the original imperative setting, it's logically a hash table - O(1) read and write.
3) Replace that ADT with a binary tree. Now you have O(lg(n)) read and write.
4) If the previous algorithm was O(f(n)), it can't do any particular thing more than O(f(n)) times, including memory access. So in the worst case, you've made O(f(n)) things take O(lg(m)) times as long, so the new algorithm must be in O(f(n) * lg(m)).
Ah, I think I see what you mean. Seems the constants being ignored could be massive. Are there any comparisons saying how things compare in practice? (Similar to how heapsort is typically not used, even though it has among the better Big O values, right?)
Right, this particular approach is most interesting as an easy upper bound.
Constants are always highly situation dependent. If you are replacing a single memory lookup with a tree traversal, that's going to be a huge difference. If, for some reason, access to your mutable variables is already an expensive operation, it might not make much difference at all. If you need to take periodic snapshots of your world state, the mutation-free version might come out way ahead sharing portions of the tree that don't need to be copied.
Constants are always highly situation dependent. If you are replacing a single memory lookup with a tree traversal, that's going to be a huge difference. If, for some reason, access to your mutable variables is already an expensive operation, it might not make much difference at all. If you need to take periodic snapshots of your world state, the mutation-free version might come out way ahead sharing portions of the tree that don't need to be copied.
I'm not sure how the periodic snapshot would "come out ahead" with the mutation free version. Seems the best you could claim is it wouldn't be as far behind as one might think. Unless periodic equals every change. In which case I would expect they could be equal. (That is, the extra work required to make it "mutation free" is extra work. Unless all of the extra work is required, it is hard to see how that version would "come out ahead.")
And this is why I particularly asked about the DLX algorithm. It is specifically made for rapid backtracking. Reading briefly [1] shows that it was even made parallel to speed it up. ("made it parallel" is a gross simplification of course.) Is a very interesting read on methods to make a heavily mutation based algorithm parallel.
[1] http://did.mat.uni-bayreuth.de/wassermann/allsolutions.ps.gz
And this is why I particularly asked about the DLX algorithm. It is specifically made for rapid backtracking. Reading briefly [1] shows that it was even made parallel to speed it up. ("made it parallel" is a gross simplification of course.) Is a very interesting read on methods to make a heavily mutation based algorithm parallel.
[1] http://did.mat.uni-bayreuth.de/wassermann/allsolutions.ps.gz
'I'm not sure how the periodic snapshot would "come out ahead" with the mutation free version.'
A snapshot of freely mutated memory is a O(N) copy.
A snapshot of a immutable tree is a single O(1) pointer copy (you just need to save the root).
Doing a full copy every change would be tremendously costly (substantially more than the penalty for walking the tree on that change, and probably overwhelming the overhead ofr walking the tree on reads).
Doing a full copy every hojillion steps would of course amortize to cheap (and probably the overhead from walking a tree for reads and writes would overwhelm it).
Anything real will of course fall somewhere between. As I said, constants are tremendously context dependent.
Note that this (of course) doesn't speed up the mutation free version - but if you have the constraint of wanting regular (or otherwise cheap) snapshots then using the mutation-free version can be the cheapest way of doing that.
I don't know the details of the DLX algorithm, or adaptations to it, well enough to say much about it in particular off the top of my head. I'd love to dig into it at some point, but I've unfortunately got higher priorities presently.
A snapshot of freely mutated memory is a O(N) copy.
A snapshot of a immutable tree is a single O(1) pointer copy (you just need to save the root).
Doing a full copy every change would be tremendously costly (substantially more than the penalty for walking the tree on that change, and probably overwhelming the overhead ofr walking the tree on reads).
Doing a full copy every hojillion steps would of course amortize to cheap (and probably the overhead from walking a tree for reads and writes would overwhelm it).
Anything real will of course fall somewhere between. As I said, constants are tremendously context dependent.
Note that this (of course) doesn't speed up the mutation free version - but if you have the constraint of wanting regular (or otherwise cheap) snapshots then using the mutation-free version can be the cheapest way of doing that.
I don't know the details of the DLX algorithm, or adaptations to it, well enough to say much about it in particular off the top of my head. I'd love to dig into it at some point, but I've unfortunately got higher priorities presently.
This is assuming a very naive snapshot of a mutated memory block. I would assume that if you were doing something that needed snapshots of each instant of the program, you would come up with a much more sane algorithm for getting that done.
It would probably use many of the same tricks as the immutable structures. Which is why I would assume they would be equal. (That is, I realize that immutable structures don't do a full copy on every "change." Depending on the structure and the change, they don't even do a copy at all.)
Consider, we basically just described how git works, no?
It would probably use many of the same tricks as the immutable structures. Which is why I would assume they would be equal. (That is, I realize that immutable structures don't do a full copy on every "change." Depending on the structure and the change, they don't even do a copy at all.)
Consider, we basically just described how git works, no?
Well, certainly nothing stops you from using the immutable version and calling it mutable (it just happens to do no mutation!). But my point is that it's a nontrivial modification compared to other approaches to enabling snapshotting, and it's a good tool to have in your belt for that kind of situation.
Particularly interesting, genuinely "persistent" data structures (as used by Okasaki in Purely Functional Data Structures - which is a fantastic read and tons of fun) can give amortized worst-case bounds even in the presence of a malicious consumer of the data structure picking which operations to run against which historical versions of the object.
Particularly interesting, genuinely "persistent" data structures (as used by Okasaki in Purely Functional Data Structures - which is a fantastic read and tons of fun) can give amortized worst-case bounds even in the presence of a malicious consumer of the data structure picking which operations to run against which historical versions of the object.
I meant more of the same strategies. Data sharing and the like. In a mutable language this can be done by simply updating the head pointer easily enough. In a non-mutable language this is tougher in some respects. This is pretty much the thing that tripped up a ton of folks back from the early days of java. "Why doesn't x.replaceAll('a', 'b') change the value of x?" was not an uncommon mistake to encounter.
DLX is actually a great example of this sort of thing, as the whole point is that the operation to remove an item from a doubly linked list can be reversed to add the item back just from looking at the item that was removed.
And again, consider the way that git works. Nobody would call c and the techniques they use immutable, but the underlying data structure is.
More directly put, I am not calling for all data structures in a classical "mutation based program" to be mutable. I am curious about some of the more famous mutation based algorithms and if there are good comparisons to the analogous versions.
There was a great post here a few weeks ago about the blind spot in functional programmers in building trees. Having just seen the "threaded trees" for what I think is my first time, I have to confess it took me longer to make than I would have thought. Mainly because I was trying to hold on to some of the "immutable" methods of programming.
DLX is actually a great example of this sort of thing, as the whole point is that the operation to remove an item from a doubly linked list can be reversed to add the item back just from looking at the item that was removed.
And again, consider the way that git works. Nobody would call c and the techniques they use immutable, but the underlying data structure is.
More directly put, I am not calling for all data structures in a classical "mutation based program" to be mutable. I am curious about some of the more famous mutation based algorithms and if there are good comparisons to the analogous versions.
There was a great post here a few weeks ago about the blind spot in functional programmers in building trees. Having just seen the "threaded trees" for what I think is my first time, I have to confess it took me longer to make than I would have thought. Mainly because I was trying to hold on to some of the "immutable" methods of programming.
"I meant more of the same strategies. Data sharing and the like."
Certainly it is possible to find alternative constructions that work. Occasionally these may still be faster. However, I strongly contest that it's "tougher" in a non-mutable context. Specifically:
'In a mutable language this can be done by simply updating the head pointer easily enough. In a non-mutable language this is tougher in some respects.'
This is wrong. The hard part about this is making sure old things pointed at by existing snapshots don't change. If your data is immutable, you get that for free.
Moreover, in terms of complexity of the system, (mutating algorithm + a bunch of stuff to capture the mutations) is likely to be messier than the nonmutating algorithm (which is sometimes cleaner than the mutating version to begin with, but certainly not always).
Also, note that you've moved to talking about "mutable languages", we had been talking about algorithms.
'This is pretty much the thing that tripped up a ton of folks back from the early days of java. "Why doesn't x.replaceAll('a', 'b') change the value of x?" was not an uncommon mistake to encounter.'
Which is clearly a problem with "non-mutable languages"? The problem there is that the Java paradigm had been strongly mutation oriented and then they dropped an incongruous mutation-free "method that is really more of a function" in there. Clarity and consistency are important in any setting.
"DLX is actually a great example of this sort of thing, as the whole point is that the operation to remove an item from a doubly linked list can be reversed to add the item back just from looking at the item that was removed."
But you can't do that if you might be sharing those lists with someone else. The point is that the constraints imposed by immutability are often the most effective means of addressing other constraints, and so study of these things is quite valuable. This thread has never been "Haskell is much better because it doesn't let you mutate anything!" - both because I've already acknowledged that in many settings the mutable versions of algorithms are preferable and because Haskell does let you mutate things (you just have to be explicit about what).
"And again, consider the way that git works. Nobody would call c and the techniques they use immutable, but the underlying data structure is."
As an aside, you can write C with very little mutation going on, if that's what you want to do. I've not looked at the git source, so I have no idea the degree to which they do.
As I said, though, that's an aside - my main point here is that immutable data, and algorithms working with it, are valuable and there are situations where they are the best solution even where mutation is "allowed" and even where a mutation-heavy version might be preferred in a slightly different setting.
"There was a great post here a few weeks ago about the blind spot in functional programmers in building trees."
A cursory search isn't turning this up - it sounds interesting. Do you have the link?
Certainly it is possible to find alternative constructions that work. Occasionally these may still be faster. However, I strongly contest that it's "tougher" in a non-mutable context. Specifically:
'In a mutable language this can be done by simply updating the head pointer easily enough. In a non-mutable language this is tougher in some respects.'
This is wrong. The hard part about this is making sure old things pointed at by existing snapshots don't change. If your data is immutable, you get that for free.
Moreover, in terms of complexity of the system, (mutating algorithm + a bunch of stuff to capture the mutations) is likely to be messier than the nonmutating algorithm (which is sometimes cleaner than the mutating version to begin with, but certainly not always).
Also, note that you've moved to talking about "mutable languages", we had been talking about algorithms.
'This is pretty much the thing that tripped up a ton of folks back from the early days of java. "Why doesn't x.replaceAll('a', 'b') change the value of x?" was not an uncommon mistake to encounter.'
Which is clearly a problem with "non-mutable languages"? The problem there is that the Java paradigm had been strongly mutation oriented and then they dropped an incongruous mutation-free "method that is really more of a function" in there. Clarity and consistency are important in any setting.
"DLX is actually a great example of this sort of thing, as the whole point is that the operation to remove an item from a doubly linked list can be reversed to add the item back just from looking at the item that was removed."
But you can't do that if you might be sharing those lists with someone else. The point is that the constraints imposed by immutability are often the most effective means of addressing other constraints, and so study of these things is quite valuable. This thread has never been "Haskell is much better because it doesn't let you mutate anything!" - both because I've already acknowledged that in many settings the mutable versions of algorithms are preferable and because Haskell does let you mutate things (you just have to be explicit about what).
"And again, consider the way that git works. Nobody would call c and the techniques they use immutable, but the underlying data structure is."
As an aside, you can write C with very little mutation going on, if that's what you want to do. I've not looked at the git source, so I have no idea the degree to which they do.
As I said, though, that's an aside - my main point here is that immutable data, and algorithms working with it, are valuable and there are situations where they are the best solution even where mutation is "allowed" and even where a mutation-heavy version might be preferred in a slightly different setting.
"There was a great post here a few weeks ago about the blind spot in functional programmers in building trees."
A cursory search isn't turning this up - it sounds interesting. Do you have the link?
DLX might be a fun algorithm to explore too. Union-Find is one I was more familiar with, but I think you're correct that DLX cannot have a reasonable, direct "pure" translation.
The post showing the balanced tree approach to modeling mutability is now up!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8027548
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8027548
Awesome, thanks!
My next post shows the balanced tree approach. It's still in the works, but if you're eager then it wouldn't be difficult to find the draft in the same repo as the code.
[deleted]
Oh, that is rich.
I'm not at all sure what you are trying to communicate, here.
Does it not seem possible to you?
Hopefully by part 3 I'll be able to poke very precisely at the seam between mutable and immutable algorithms and unlock how to pick between them with greater refinement.
Hopefully by part 3 I'll be able to poke very precisely at the seam between mutable and immutable algorithms and unlock how to pick between them with greater refinement.
This seems like a reimplementation of ST using an unspecified State Mem.
It's not yet, but—to cheat a bit here—eventually we're going to use `Mem` to get quite intimate with `ST` and show why it's important to use `ST` perhaps more often than people even anticipate.
If you'd like, try to instantiate something along the lines of `Mem (State (IntMap v))`. It's slightly trickier than it looks due to some typing issues (which don't matter, but I'll save the reveal). It's also likely to be slightly buggy.
If you'd like, try to instantiate something along the lines of `Mem (State (IntMap v))`. It's slightly trickier than it looks due to some typing issues (which don't matter, but I'll save the reveal). It's also likely to be slightly buggy.
After someone asked for it in /r/haskell I added a link to the complete code for this post.
https://github.com/tel/tel.github.io/tree/master/public/code...
Thus far there are no dependencies on outside libraries (though eventually I'll have to use `containers`) so you can just drop it into GHCi and play around!
https://github.com/tel/tel.github.io/tree/master/public/code...
Thus far there are no dependencies on outside libraries (though eventually I'll have to use `containers`) so you can just drop it into GHCi and play around!
Looking forward to seeing where this goes. This well recieved paper[1], discusses converting reference & set type mechanics into persistent and partially persistence data structures. The model is quite similar to what is going on here. It be great to write algorithms and convert them to immutable, mutable or partially mutable at will.
[1] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sleator/papers/Persistence.htm
[1] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sleator/papers/Persistence.htm
I was considering implementing something similar to the Overmars methods mentioned on page 90. Maybe I'll read this paper and see if I can tack it on at the end... Thanks for the link!
Now, this and other articles about the difficulty of writing standard algorithms in functional languages makes me want to see FP's pitch be unbundled. The thing is that FP is pitched as a useful thing to learn to get an insight into programming, improve your mental fitness, see things at a higher level and so-forth. But it's also pitched as a way to be more productive and effective as a programmer. Effectively, it's sold as an exercise cycle and a real bicycle, a way to improve yourself and good way to get somewhere.
Now, I'll acknowledge that functional programming probably is great for the higher-level view of programming and such. But the challenges outlined in this article makes me doubtful fp is a productivity tool, a system which will allow some large number of programmers to make a large step in productivity.
I mean, if fp doesn't make simplistic programming faster and stands in the way of a large number of algorithmic approaches, it seems your productivity would consistently hobbled. Is there a counter-argument to this problem?