Haskell Taketh Away - Limiting Side Effects for Parallel Programming

This course focuses on the importance of limiting side effects for parallel programming in languages like Haskell and C++. The learning outcomes include understanding how to design parallel programming abstractions by restricting user capabilities, exploring the role of purely functional programming in Haskell, and enforcing restrictions on side effects at compile time using the type system. The course teaches skills such as experimenting with combinations of effects for transactional memory and deterministic parallelism, as well as incorporating similar ideas in C++ through embedded domain specific languages (EDSLs). The teaching method involves a presentation that discusses the evolution of Haskell and C++, the notion of purity in programming languages, and the preservation of determinism in applications. The intended audience for this course includes programmers interested in functional programming, parallel programming, and the intersection of Haskell and C++ in the context of limiting side effects for improved parallel performance.