AngloHaskell/2007

On June the 9th 2006, Microsoft Research sent out an advert for a job. This eventually led to AngloHaskell 2006, and much fun was had!

Doing it again in 2007 seems like a good idea, who's up for it?

Local contact: Duncan Coutts, +44 7913 261 613, backup Ganesh Sittampalam +44 7968 253467

Organisational contact: Neil Mitchell, +44 7876 126 574

Date and Venue

Confirmed! We're going with the 10th-11th of August in Cambridge, starting with talks at Microsoft Research and with more planning to happen below.

Many thanks to Matthew Sackman for offering us an alternative venue! Perhaps we can try it next year?

Yes, I'll still be at Imperial then so I can't see why not! MatthewSackman

Edit: That's Cambridge in England. Yes, we have been asked this.

Directions to MSR

MSR has some directions, which can be best summarised as ‘get a taxi’. Here is (hopefully) a Google Earth location of MSR, as well as a Google Maps link. (J J Thomson Avenue is immediately west of Clerk Maxwell Road.)

If you do take a taxi and the driver doesn't know where it is, tell him or her to drive down Madingley Road until you reach the West Cambridge site, J J Thomson Avenue. The Computer Laboratory (next door) has marginally better instructions.

The fastest way to MSR (on foot and public transport) from the station is to cut through to Trumpington Road via Bateman Street (don't follow the driving directions!), and take the Citi 4 or Uni 4. There's a bus stop just across the road from Bateman Street.

To get to the city centre by bus, take the Citi 1 or Citi 3. Do ask to make sure they're going in the right direction though! There are also a number of clearly marked shuttle busses between the centre and station running during the day every 10 minutes or so.

To walk to the centre (20 minutes not carrying luggage), go straight down the road facing you when you come out of the station, bear right when the road ends at some traffic lights / a WW1 memorial / the botanic gardens, and keep walking straight (Hills Road / Regent St / St Andrews St) for quite a while until you reach a pedestrianised bit, at which point you are in the centre.

From the city centre to MSR, you can catch the number 77 Madingley Road Park and Ride which goes from bus stop M on Emma St. (Or find your way to Pembroke or Silver Street, and catch the Citi 4 / Uni 4 from there.) (Note that the 77 doesn't stop by MSR any more, it goes to the park and ride from which you have to walk back, 10-15 mins. This caught me out the other day --SimonM).

Parking

Some parking spaces will be available around the back of the MSR building. To get out again, drivers will need to talk to reception to obtain a token.

Attendees

Per last year, all attendees should bring or make a nametag that identifies you by your real name and/or IRC name. If anyone wants to drag a roll of stickers and a pen along that'll help!

If you can't make the start on Friday, or can only make it on Saturday, that's fine. If you're not sure where everyone's going to be, give one of the contacts a call or a text.

Duncan Coutts has volunteered to act as local contact, with Ganesh Sittampalam as backup. Thanks guys!

Definite

• Philippa Cowderoy
• Neil Mitchell
• Simon Peyton Jones (leaving for vacation on Saturday though)
• Peter McArthur
• Chris Smith (cdsmith)
• Duncan Coutts
• Simon Marlow
• Ganesh Sittampalam
• Claude Heiland-Allen

Possible

• Ben Moseley
• Alex McLean - very keen, can also confirm once more details are set.
• Ian Lynagh
• Edwin Brady
• Titto (if it is in September)
• Sebastian Sylvan - interested. It depends on the talks. I'm sure all the talks listed so far will be interesting, but if we can get one or two of the "big names" to give a talk, then it's a surefire guarantee that it'll be worth coming for, and then other talks would be icing on the cake! Personally I'm very interested in the concurrency/parallelism stuff that's going on currently (so if anyone reading this has something to say on that, sign up!). Also, might be worhtwhile to synchronise it with a bank holiday so people don't have to take a day off?
• Lennart Augustsson - I can probably make August 10-11, otherwise early September.
• Matthew Sackman - it's unlikely I won't be there.
• Ben Lippmeier - If it's at MSR then I'm already there.
• Andy Gimblett
• Tom Parslow - Sounds fun, hopefully will be there
• Magnus Therning
• Alan Mock

Lodging

It's likely that there'll be people in need of crashspace and so forth, so please organise here! Both offers and requests are good.

Crashspace Requests

• Claude Heiland-Allen

Nearby Colleges

Many of undergraduate colleges (which are really glorified halls of residence) offer cheap accommodation over the holidays. Locations near MSR include Churchill College, Wolfson Court (an annexe of Girton College), Fitzwillian College, Robinson College, New Hall (female only) and Burwells Field (an annexe of Trinity College).

This map might prove useful.

-- Peter McArthur

Hostels

There's a fairly inexpensive YHA hostel in Cambridge. There may be others.

Programme

Planning will be taking place on IRC as per last year: #anglohaskell on irc.freenode.net

If you're having trouble following things on IRC, the discussion page on the wiki might be a good place to leave comments and questions.

Last year we had talks in the day on a Friday, followed by pubbage in the evening and assorted activities on the Saturday. This seemed to work, so we'll follow a similar model this year.

Talks

Philippa will be arriving at MSR around 10am, with tea, coffee and biscuits available from 10:30am. There'll be a sandwich lunch available (time to be confirmed around the talks) and another coffee etc break sometime between 3 and 4.

Volunteers please! Last year we had a largely more practical set of talks than you might find at Fun in the Afternoon or an academic event. This was a good thing, and some of the best talks were from people who were far from considering themselves as experts, so feel free to tell us about your experiences.

Talks planned and/or offered:

• Philippa Cowderoy - my experiences with Haskell as a person with Asperger's Syndrome - CONFIRMED
• Neil Mitchell - Making Haskell Faster - CONFIRMED
• Claude Heiland-Allen - maybe something on embedding Haskell inside the multimedia software Pure-data - CONFIRMED
• Alex McLean - something related to improvising live music with Haskell
• Lennart Augustsson - I could have my arm twisted enough to give a talk.
• Ben Lippmeier - effect inference and optimisation, like at SAPLING

So far, we know that Neil's talk is going to happen towards the end of the morning before lunch, Philippa's will be in the afternoon. We have some additional offers that may come through as well.

If anyone has any dietary requirements, could they add them here before Friday the 3rd? Lunch'll be sandwiches, I'm told vegetarians should be okay either way.

Abstracts

• Neil Mitchell - Making Haskell Faster

  In Haskell there is sometimes a tension between declarative high-level programs, and high-performance programs. This talk discusses a whole-program optimisation for Haskell, which can transform a high-level program into a very low-level performance orientated one.

• Claude Heiland-Allen - Extending Pure-data with Haskell

  Pure-data (Pd) is a real-time graphical programming environment for multimedia processing. Pd has a ``stateful objects and message passing paradigm, and additional object classes can be written in C (Pd native), C++, Python, Scheme, Ruby, and possibly others through extra plugins). This talk will be about the trials and tribulations of adding Haskell support to Pure-data.

Other activity

After Friday's talks, food and drink would be a good idea!

I suggest we go to The Regal for brunch on Saturday to kick off with. That's the Wetherspoons from last year. After that, punting again if it's not raining too much? Any suggestions for if it's wet?

I'd like it if we can eat at a restaurant before finding a pub for the evening on friday. Borrowing Fun in the Afternoon's post-talks curry works if nobody's got any other suggestions - PhilippaCowderoy

Wifi at MSR

Once again, MSR is willling to provide wireless internet to everyone who gives their name and email address (and where appropriate, company/institution name) - this time by Friday the 3rd of August. Feel free to add your details even if you're not sure you're coming!

• Philippa Cowderoy (flippa@flippac.org)
• Ganesh Sittampalam (ganesh@earth.li, Credit Suisse)
• Alan Mock (docmach@gmail.com)
• Chris Smith (cdsmith@twu.net)
• Lennart Augustsson (lennart@augustsson.net, Credit Suisse)
• Claude Heiland-Allen (claudiusmaximus@goto10.org, GOTO10)

Wiki organisation

This isn't really a major point, but: it seems to me that keeping about the pages used to organise previous events is a good idea as things go on, and that this page should be used both to link to the archives and contain the current discussion. Anyone take issue with this?