Stupidly Obscure Programming in a Troubled Time (2018)

4 days ago

The author explores concurrent data retrieval in Haskell using Haxl and in Scala with Fetch, noting Haxl's advantage due to Haskell's do construct extensions.
A tedious Scala macro is constructed to mimic Haxl's functionality in Scala's for comprehensions, with many challenges encountered.
The post demonstrates the macro's success in batching concurrent data fetches but acknowledges the complexity and limitations.
The author rants about the complications of implementing Haskell-style programming in Scala, especially around typeclasses and implicits.
A detailed example shows how Fetch batches data retrieval operations in Scala, comparing manual and macro-assisted approaches.
The macro's implementation involves complex AST transformations and symbol ownership management to achieve the desired batching effect.
The author reflects on the difficulties of debugging Scala macros and the IDE's limitations in handling implicit conversions and typeclasses.
Despite the technical success, the author expresses dissatisfaction with the complexity of categorical programming in Scala compared to Haskell.

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