Protocol for Frege Day 2015

Frege Day 2015

Review

https://www.canoo.com/blog/2015/09/18/review-frege-day-2015/

Link collection

Announcement, location

Simon Peyton Jones conversation transcript

video playlist

presentations

Special topics

Positioning of the language

We are about to iron out the insubstantial differences to Haskell.

However, some differences will remain since they are key to productivity on the Java platform and code that contains any JVM specifics will remain to be called "Frege" with the file extension .fr.

We consider a "Haskell compatibility mode", enforced by the compiler, that compiles "vanilla" Haskell code to Java. Such code should also compile unmodified by any other Haskell-2010 compliant compiler. The Frege compiler could recognize such code by the file extension .hs.

Build systems

There currently is support for maven, gradle, leinigen, sbt, bazel, and of course make and IDE-specific setups.

We cannot possibly control what people are using for their build. We need to be inclusive. However, we need to publish the compiler and the libraries in a way that any build tool can easily consume.

Open question: do we recommend one specific setup for greenfield projects?

Easy setup for new Frege projects

The user experience for just trying some Frege code is already pretty well covered in the REPLs:

• online REPL: no installation
• command line REPL and FregeFX REPL: self-contained download, unzip, start.

Missing: 5-second setup to create a fresh Frege project.

Easy publishing of libraries

Missing: the 5-second upload facility to a "blessed" repository.

Overview of available artifacts, learning material, rising popularity

Compiler and tools are in very good shape. Many Haskell books/videos/courses/trainings etc. are available that can directly be used with Frege. FregeGoodness is a dedicated book. JavaMagazin (GER) article series is imminent. Lot's of conference coverage. 1250+ github stars lift Frege into the top 10 of most popular Haskell projects and to the 0.02% top-rated Java projects.

The popular edX FP101 MOOC supports Frege.

Missing: a "newcomer's guide" that leads through the existing material.

Monthly developer meetup in Basel?

... maybe as part of the local Hackergarten or as an extra event where we tackle "one library at a time".

Canoo also runs a local study group for the edX FP101 course and everybody is invited to join.