the arc of software bends towards understanding
tl;dr If you use a Foldable function like length or null, where instance selection is solely determined by the input argument, you should make your code more robust by introducing an explicit type application specifying which instance you want. This isn't necessary for a function like fold, where the return type can cross-check if you've […]
I want to take the opportunity to advertise some new work from a colleague of mine, Henry Corrigan-Gibbs (in collaboration with the venerable Dan Boneh) on the subject of preserving privacy when collecting aggregate statistics. Their new system is called Prio and will be appearing at this year's NSDI. The basic problem they tackle is […]
Suppose you are a library writer interested in using Backpack. Backpack says that you can replace a direct dependency on a function, type or package with one or more signatures. You typecheck against a signature and your end user picks how they want to eventually implement the signature. Sounds good right? But there's a dirty […]