Improving Hugs: Haskell as a Research Tool

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Proposal Number: CCR-9974980Title: Improving Hugs: Haskell as a Research ToolPI's: Tim Sheard and Mark Jones, Oregon Graduate InstituteThe programming language Haskell has emerged as the standard lazyfunctional language, and offers strong typing, higher-order features, andparametric polymorphism. The Hugs interpreter is a simple, easily ported,implementation of Haskell. This project will enhance Hugs, focusing onissues of usability and integration with the high-performance GlasgowHaskell Compiler.The project improves the Hugs interpreter in several ways:Integration with GHC runtime system:By completing the integration of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler run-timesystem with the Hugs interpreter, a fully interoperable system capableof executing a mixture of compiled and byte-code interpreted code willbe constucted. Declarative debugging: The project will investigate the problem of tracing the computational stepsof a lazy functional program, at a level of abstraction consistent with theprogrammers view of the program.Better Error Reporting:The project investigates how to improve the type error debuggingprocess by building improved type inference systems intoHugs, capable of reporting both where and why type errors haveoccurred. Successful integration with the GHC run-time system has numerousbenefits. It allows the Hugs interpreter to access the existing GHCfeatures including compiled preludes and libraries, while maintainingthe small footprint and ease of use of an interpreter. Completion ofthe project will greatly increase the size and complexity of theproblems to which the Hugs interpreter can be applied.