Beta Update - Haskell Brain Teasers
by Rebecca Skinner @cercerilla.bsky.social
pragprog.com/titles/...
Two complete new teasers since B3:
* Field Theory
* Non-functional Dependencies
New post on the #Haskell blog: "Analyzing language extension semantics" from the Stability Working Group.
blog.haskell.org/investigatin...
I just pushed puzzle 19 (of 20 total) for Haskell Brain Teasers. This one covers multi-param type classes, associated type families, functional dependencies, and common issues with type inference. The last puzzle will be on linear types.
I’m really happy with how this book is shaping up.
A green pionus parrot with a mottled pink-and-gray forehead stands on a person’s hand in front of a large computer monitor. The screen behind him shows lines of blue and purple code. The bird is facing slightly to the right, looking alert and curious.
George has opinions about injectivity.
It varies a bit, I’d say maybe 2-3 hours a month baseline (1 hour monthly meeting plus keeping up with email, github and slack), and scaling up to maybe 10 hours a month if there’s something going on or you are leading an initiative. Consistent baseline availability is most important.
Nominations are open for anyone interested in serving a 3 year term on the Haskell.org Committee (discourse.haskell.org/t/haskell-or...).
If you're interested in making @haskell.org better, please consider nominating yourself. You can reach out to me or anyone on the committee for more info.
Haskell Brain Teasers is currently in beta. If you’re planning to read it I’d love you to get the beta and give feedback now!
pragprog.com/titles/haske...
i updated Haskell Brain Teasers this weekend with a puzzle on record dot syntax. 18 puzzles down , 2 to go. The next puzzle covers functional dependencies, injectivity, and associated type families. The last one will be on linear types.
I am so ready for this trend of fiction being written in present tense to be over. I’ve wasted so many credits on audio books that I listen to for all of 10 minutes before giving up because it’s yet another present tense story that confuses austerity for immediacy and immediacy for being good.
More than *anything* the people who actually know how technology works, who actually build things, wish that people would treat LLMs like every other technology, and be normal about them. Don't build a religion about them, don't force them on people, don't ignore the problems. Just be normal.
Tonight I'm working on Haskell Brain Teasers while watching Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which was shot by Haskell Wexler.
You should check out the movie, and the book. I promise none of the puzzles are as hard as watching George and Martha play "Get The Guests"
pragprog.com/titles/haske...
"It was always difficult to recommend a single up-to-date learning resource. This book fills that niche perfectly, providing both a gentle introduction to the language and a deeper hands-on dive into the practical side..."
-- Tikhon Jelvis, Chair, Haskell.org Committee.
@cercerilla.bsky.social
A top down tabletop style battle map featuring the ruins of an ancient tower and outbuildings that have been recently re-inhabited.
My favorite down-time/stress release activity lately has been making tabletop gaming maps. I haven't been active on bluesky for a while, but I thought it might be nice to share a couple of them.
I wish we could have more grown up nuanced discussions like this about AI. I find it useful, and recognize its limits and the social effort to adapt to a world where it exists.
If you've thought about giving Haskell a try, this is a great opportunity to get Effective Haskell at a discount. Whether you check out Effective Haskell or not, I'm always happy to answer questions or help folks who are interested in functional programming.
If you've thought about giving Haskell a try, this is a great opportunity to get Effective Haskell at a discount. Whether you check out Effective Haskell or not, I'm always happy to answer questions or help folks who are interested in functional programming.
I’m really excited to announce my first chapbook, “Trans Artifacts: Bones Between My Teeth,” will be published by Porkbelly Press in 2026/7!
I think a significant underlying challenge is that one of the biggest unsolved problems in software engineering is getting any two developers to agree on the definition of simple.
That said, you don’t have to write a book to practice it. I think all technical writing can do with a bit of making the reader the hero of their own story. Technical writing provides a lot of opportunity for the reader to overcome obstacles and the author to guide them and celebrate with them.
I’m working on my second book right now, Haskell Brain Teasers. It’s shorter and more structured than Effective Haskell, but writing is still a lot of work.
One thing that helps keep me motivated is the belief that kind and empathetic technical writing that celebrates the reader is important.
I’ve been working for a while on an article that aims to explain pure functions in terms of dictionaries. It’s been slow to write so I decided to release part 1 now and I’ll follow up with a part 2 soon:
rebeccaskinner.net/posts/2024-1...
As an example:
rebeccaskinner.net/posts/2025-0...
One of my favorite things is writing completely unhinged code that should never exist.
The fact congressional Democrats have not hired three dozen D&D rules lawyers with oppositional defiant disorder and turned them loose on parliamentary procedure with the goal of maximum obstruction is such a fucking missed opportunity
Something that isn’t new to me, but I struggle with a bit is knowing some of the horrendous history of western Egyptology. I do think it’s okay to appreciate the learning while trying to be respectful recognizing the history, but it’s worth acknowledging.
1. It’s amazing to learn something completely impractical (to me) just for the sheer joy of learning, and I need to do that more.
2. Unicode support has come a long way in Linux these days.
3. I wish I’d studied languages more when I was younger.
4. I’m really, really bad at drawing birds.
I’ve been studying middle Egyptian lately, for no particular reason. I’m pretty early on, but here are some of my big takeaways so far…
Of course there will always be some room for superstition and times when the cost of failure is too high- no e-commerce company is going to push big changes the day before Black Friday.
There’s always some risk of failure and expected value calculations are a normal thing to do.
It really should be, because I think that feeling signals a place where a system really demands more care and investment. Good engineering should have a developed intuition about risks, and turning uncomfortable gut feelings into working software before an outage is the best outcome.
Okay, yeah, I buy this perspective. I’m so accustomed to it that I forget merging and deployment are actually different things.
