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Facebook open sources Haxl

code.facebook.com

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Re: Facebook open sources Haxl

#71

Post by JonCoens »

X4 wrote: post #63
JonCoens wrote: post #6

I'm an engineer on the Haxl project and am really excited to launch this today. Ask me anything!

Are you employing the ideas behind reactive programming? And can you explain the types of monads you used for what problem and why? I am writing a paper on Functional Reactive Programming and Haxl really made me curious. The paper (currently in german, but I'll translate it) proposes a new Hypothesis that tries to shred FRP in general, by showing a novel way that solves some of the problems automatically that natural…

This is in a similar space to reactive programming, but isn't reactive at its core. The best explanation of the monad we use developed is described in the paper here: http://community.haskell.org/~simonmar/papers/haxl-icfp14.pd...

Query sharding is at the data source layer, which Haxl doesn't delve into. It's up to each data source integration with Haxl to do the appropriate routing/etc.

Hope you find it useful!

Re: Facebook open sources Haxl

#73

Post by ixmatus »

EGreg wrote: post #72
ixmatus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously don't understand what Haxl is for.

Why is that obvious to you? Do you care to explain your cryptic comment?

Well, that project, Q just doesn't even share the same thesis of Haxl. At all. Two completely different projects, Q couldn't be used for what Haxl is intended.

If you had posted the link asking for a comparison, that would've been different, but your ignorance seemed obvious to me because of the haughty wink at the end of your posted link implying we were being let in on some kind of secret.

Re: Facebook open sources Haxl

#75

Post by dllthomas »

m0nastic wrote: post #53
fiatjaf wrote: post #48

http://hackage.haskell.org/package/haxl Why do Haskell libraries on Hackage doesn't come even with a single example, getting started, how to use, quick start, nothing, really, just function declarations? This scares Haskell newbies.

The "documentation" on Hackage is almost universally just the haddock-generated files (which is why it's mostly just function declarations and type signatures). Most libraries list a "Home Page" that more often than not includes more useful documentation (Haxl's, for example, has the things you've mentioned). I concur, that most of the time, the documentation on Hackage isn't really sufficient, but I've found that fo…

"I agree that it would be nice if everything was all in one place."

I actually find "distilled reference with links to source" a fantastically valuable view. I've no objection to providing some sort of combined view, but let's not lose what we have in a quest for consolidation. I've no idea if that's what you meant or not, and don't mean to put words in your mouth of course, just expressing a concern.

Re: Facebook open sources Haxl

#76

Post by dllthomas »

msie wrote: post #50
thoughtpolice wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be completely honest, the namespace/module situation with Haskell could certainly be a _ton_ better, but after 8 years of it I can't ever remember a time when it was ever at the top of my mind as game-breaking. Occasionally quite annoying? Yes, most definitely. But I'd say there are more many more annoying things day to day, and in any case, it is certainly a tradeoff I'll put up with for the returns. That said, G…

Thanks! If it's not a pain in regular Haskell work then I'm relieved. Perhaps other data types are more prevalent in Haskell than records?

I agree with the parent that it is a pain, but not very much of one. My pains in lacking other features when I move away from Haskell are far greater than my pains in name collision in Haskell.

Re: Facebook open sources Haxl

#77

Post by SkyMarshal »

nbm wrote: post #40
SkyMarshal wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Bryan O'Sullivan and the team from his Haskell-based startup Facebook acquired in 2011 still there? I sat in on a class of his a while back and remember him ruefully laughing about having to use PHP now.

Bryan is still here. He's actually kicking off a Haskell class within Facebook at the moment - https://twitter.com/bos31337/status/475335956556705792

Great! He's obviously a great advocate for Haskell at Facebook.

Re: Facebook open sources Haxl

#78

Post by m0nastic »

dllthomas wrote: post #75
m0nastic wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "documentation" on Hackage is almost universally just the haddock-generated files (which is why it's mostly just function declarations and type signatures). Most libraries list a "Home Page" that more often than not includes more useful documentation (Haxl's, for example, has the things you've mentioned). I concur, that most of the time, the documentation on Hackage isn't really sufficient, but I've found that fo…

"I agree that it would be nice if everything was all in one place." I actually find "distilled reference with links to source" a fantastically valuable view. I've no objection to providing some sort of combined view, but let's not lose what we have in a quest for consolidation. I've no idea if that's what you meant or not, and don't mean to put words in your mouth of course, just expressing a concern.

I agree it's hard to be all things to all people.

I think fundamentally, Hackage is meant to be a centralized package repository. If you look at other similar projects, there seems to be no real consensus as to whether that should just be a launching-off point to the actual project page, or more inclusive.

When I originally wrote this, I was going to say "It's akin to CPAN", but then to make sure I wasn't misremembering, I looked at a bunch of CPAN packages and saw that they were all actually fully-documented (with examples and whatnot).

I think the advantage to having consolidation is that you can then at least try to enforce documentation standards (whether you should, is arguable). What's super frustrating is going to a Hackage page, finding the link to the project home page (frequently on GitHub), going to the GitHub page and then just seeing a barren directory listing of files.

I feel slightly uncomfortable making statements about how Hackage should be set up however, as it's like going to a soup kitchen and then complaining about the specific soup they've decided to give you. "Oh, you mean this community resource we've set up which allows anyone to contribute a package and have it globally available doesn't provide exactly the functionality you'd like? Please tell me more about how the community can respond to your whims."

Also, for what it's worth, all the Haskell libraries that I make frequent use of tend to have very good documentation (you could argue that's HOW they end up becoming the ones I make frequent use of).

Re: Facebook open sources Haxl

#79

Post by emmanueloga_ »

AaronFriel wrote: post #4

This is a fascinating project. Haxl is the brainchild of former Glasgow Haskell Compiler lead* Simon Marlow. The tl;dr of Haxl: what if you could describe accessing a data store (a la SQL) and have the compiler and library work together to "figure out" the most efficient way to perform queries, including performing multiple queries in parallel? That's what Haxl does, it allows you to specify the "shape" of your query…

reminds me of http://ql.io/ (which does not seem to have taken off... last commit: Apr 24, 2013).

Re: Facebook open sources Haxl

#80

Post by Evgeny »

simonmar wrote: post #23
AaronFriel wrote: post #4

This is a fascinating project. Haxl is the brainchild of former Glasgow Haskell Compiler lead* Simon Marlow. The tl;dr of Haxl: what if you could describe accessing a data store (a la SQL) and have the compiler and library work together to "figure out" the most efficient way to perform queries, including performing multiple queries in parallel? That's what Haxl does, it allows you to specify the "shape" of your query…

He is still committing, but not quite so often :)

Is it a cultural reference? Found it in bestcomments, so looks like many people do get it, but I don't. Genuinely interested having English as a second language.
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