7 ms·

MSR funding a 2-year project to mature Parallel Haskell for commercial users

60 points by dons 16y ago

pln 16y ago
This is really cool. Kudos, Microsoft.
- thu 16y ago
  This is Microsoft Research; I believe it's not really the Microsoft behind Windows and co.
  - chollida1 16y ago
    > This is Microsoft Research; I believe it's not really the Microsoft behind Windows and co. I'm curious as to what you mean with this statement, given that Microsoft Research is a part of Microsoft.
    - thu 16y ago
      Well, I just meant that 'is part' is different than 'is'. And that I think the freedom that enjoy MSR is not exactly related to the creation of future consumer software. It is generally accepted to make a difference between, for instance, the marketing communication and the work quality accomplished by the engineers. I think it is as important to make the distinction between Microsoft and its Reserach part.
      - endtime 16y ago
        >And that I think the freedom that enjoy MSR is not exactly related to the creation of future consumer software. Where do you think the funding for MSR comes from? Who do you think decides to allocate that funding?
  - lincolnq 16y ago
    It is admirable that Microsoft has a research department and that they are willing to publish their work. Not many companies can say the same.
  - awa 16y ago
    They are run by the same management, the money for MSR really comes from sales of Windows and Office, and most research done is to explore future features of MS products
LiveTheDream 16y ago
Great to see major investments in moving programming languages forward.
Periodic 16y ago
I have a few friends who program largely in C++ or in interpreted languages like Python, Ruby, and Perl. They've scoffed at my love of Haskell, claiming it's too academic and overly complex and that they'd rather just get things done. Just last week I asked them what piece of software was missing from their lives in an attempt to get ideas for a new project to start. One of the first things on all their lists was software that would automatically parallelize an algorithm for them. Inwardly I wanted to put palm to face because the easy parallelization in Haskell is one of the killer features I'd been trying to convince them of. I think the major barrier to adoption is lack of real-world results to show people that's viable. All the benchmarks in the world won't convince these people to change their ways, but if they see other people using it to good effect, they will seriously consider it.
- runT1ME 16y ago
  I wasn't aware Haskell had good multi-threaded support. How is Haskell better at auto-parallelizing an algorithm compared to say, java's fork/join or .NET's equivalent?
  - lincolnq 16y ago
    Haskell's tools mostly have the same sort of power as forkjoin (scheduling work to be done on separate threads; creating the right number of threads based on the hardware; providing an easy-to-use set of functions that call for work to be done in parallel). The major difference is that the tools compose with the language better. Instead of having to keep "I'm working in a multicore environment" in your head all the time when you're writing your client code (as you would in Java, worrying about concurrent mutation and so on), Haskell enforces immutability throughout the language. Often you get the extremely convenient situation where you observe that something could be parallelized, change map to pmap and you're now using all your cores.
    - eru 16y ago
      Yes. But immutability is not the whole job. You have to make sure to use the right data structures. Linear data structures like lists don't parallelize well. You need to use something that breaks into more equal parts instead of car and cdr. Compare Guy Steele's talk "Get rid of Cons" at the International Conference on Functional Programming 2009. For the slides go to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814632 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814632, the video should also be available online somewhere.
ganley 16y ago
Almost exactly 20 years ago, I started my grad-school research on this very topic: auto-parallelizing Haskell. Shortly, though, my advisor left and I had to choose a new advisor and a new research topic. It's been surreal to see Haskell suddenly (it seems) get so popular lately, and now to see a commercial push for the very thing I was going to work on is very cool. It's incredible that it's taken so long, but better late than never.

60 points by dons 16y ago

pln 16y ago

This is really cool. Kudos, Microsoft.

thu 16y ago
This is Microsoft Research; I believe it's not really the Microsoft behind Windows and co.
- chollida1 16y ago
  > This is Microsoft Research; I believe it's not really the Microsoft behind Windows and co. I'm curious as to what you mean with this statement, given that Microsoft Research is a part of Microsoft.
  - thu 16y ago
    Well, I just meant that 'is part' is different than 'is'. And that I think the freedom that enjoy MSR is not exactly related to the creation of future consumer software. It is generally accepted to make a difference between, for instance, the marketing communication and the work quality accomplished by the engineers. I think it is as important to make the distinction between Microsoft and its Reserach part.
    - endtime 16y ago
      >And that I think the freedom that enjoy MSR is not exactly related to the creation of future consumer software. Where do you think the funding for MSR comes from? Who do you think decides to allocate that funding?
- lincolnq 16y ago
  It is admirable that Microsoft has a research department and that they are willing to publish their work. Not many companies can say the same.
- awa 16y ago
  They are run by the same management, the money for MSR really comes from sales of Windows and Office, and most research done is to explore future features of MS products

LiveTheDream 16y ago

Great to see major investments in moving programming languages forward.

Periodic 16y ago

I have a few friends who program largely in C++ or in interpreted languages like Python, Ruby, and Perl. They've scoffed at my love of Haskell, claiming it's too academic and overly complex and that they'd rather just get things done. Just last week I asked them what piece of software was missing from their lives in an attempt to get ideas for a new project to start. One of the first things on all their lists was software that would automatically parallelize an algorithm for them. Inwardly I wanted to put palm to face because the easy parallelization in Haskell is one of the killer features I'd been trying to convince them of. I think the major barrier to adoption is lack of real-world results to show people that's viable. All the benchmarks in the world won't convince these people to change their ways, but if they see other people using it to good effect, they will seriously consider it.

runT1ME 16y ago
I wasn't aware Haskell had good multi-threaded support. How is Haskell better at auto-parallelizing an algorithm compared to say, java's fork/join or .NET's equivalent?
- lincolnq 16y ago
  Haskell's tools mostly have the same sort of power as forkjoin (scheduling work to be done on separate threads; creating the right number of threads based on the hardware; providing an easy-to-use set of functions that call for work to be done in parallel). The major difference is that the tools compose with the language better. Instead of having to keep "I'm working in a multicore environment" in your head all the time when you're writing your client code (as you would in Java, worrying about concurrent mutation and so on), Haskell enforces immutability throughout the language. Often you get the extremely convenient situation where you observe that something could be parallelized, change map to pmap and you're now using all your cores.
  - eru 16y ago
    Yes. But immutability is not the whole job. You have to make sure to use the right data structures. Linear data structures like lists don't parallelize well. You need to use something that breaks into more equal parts instead of car and cdr. Compare Guy Steele's talk "Get rid of Cons" at the International Conference on Functional Programming 2009. For the slides go to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814632 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814632, the video should also be available online somewhere.

ganley 16y ago

Almost exactly 20 years ago, I started my grad-school research on this very topic: auto-parallelizing Haskell. Shortly, though, my advisor left and I had to choose a new advisor and a new research topic. It's been surreal to see Haskell suddenly (it seems) get so popular lately, and now to see a commercial push for the very thing I was going to work on is very cool. It's incredible that it's taken so long, but better late than never.