Haskell Web Framework Happstack 6 Released
Jeremy Shaw
I am pleased to announce the release of Happstack 6. We fully
recommend that all Happstack users migrate to the new release.
Happstack is a high-performance Haskell web framework. It has high-
level functionality for routing requests, extracting parameters,
manipulating responses, serving static file contents, compression
responses, and more. It includes an integrated HTTP server and a
native RAM-cloud database system known as MACID. This allows you to
deploy your web application with out having to configure apache, php,
mysql, memcached, etc!
Install instructions can be found here:
If you are porting existing applications you should check out the
Happstack 6 migration guide:
http://code.google.com/p/happstack/wiki/Happstack6Migration
Porting should be pretty straight-forward. Despite the massive
reorganization, the exports from Happstack.Server are largely the same.
What's Exciting!
----------------
The focus of this release has been happstack-server. The primary goal
was to make happstack-server much easier to learn and to use.
This includes:
1. improving the overall organization of the library
2. greatly improving the documentation
3. making it easier to install
4. ensuring that the server provides fast, reliable performance
5. making it easier for new (and old) developers to understand and
get started
If you have looked at Happstack before and found it too difficult to
understand, I highly recommend you take another look. The new
organization and documentation make it far easier to understand.
More Logical Organiation
------------------------
In prior versions, the Happstack.Server.SimpleHTTP module contained
just about everything, with little organization, and no real
differentiation between the external API and the library internals. In
Happstack 6, SimpleHTTP has been refactored into numerous, smaller
modules. The internals have been moved into
Happstack.Server.Internal.* so that they are not leaking into the
external API. This should make it much easier to find what you are
looking for, and prevent you from accidently running across internal
things like the WebT monad, which you do not really need to know
anything about.
Better Documentation
--------------------
The API documentation for happstack-server is also much better. All
external API functions should now have good haddock documentation with
many inline examples.
However, learning a new library by studying the API documentation can
still be pretty frustrating. So we also have the brand new Happstack
Crash Course. http://happstack.com/docs/crashcourse/index.html.
The Happstack Crash Course covers a vast majority of the happstack-
server API. It covers the API in a logical manner and includes many
downloadable, runnable examples. It is intended to be read start to
finish, and to also be usable as a reference guide for specific "How
do I do XXX" questions.
Additionally, the guestbook example has been updated to a cleaner,
more modern style of Happstack coding. It also has more comments/
haddock documentation.
Better API
----------
During the process of documenting Happstack, many small improvements
where made to the API. Once you try to document something stupid you
realize how stupid it is and decided it would be good to fix it first ;)
For example, the Cookie API now makes it more obvious how to create
session cookies vs persistent cookies. And makes it obvious how to
expire a cookie.
The functions for looking up values in the query string and require
body no longer require the use of the RqData monad. You can use the
look* functions directly in the ServerPart monad.
If you do choose to use RqData, it now has an Applicative instance
which can accummulate and report lookup errors. (http://happstack.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-rqdata-monad-still-needed.html
) There are a bunch of other improvements to request data handling
documented here, http://happstack.com/docs/crashcourse/RqData.html.
Easier Install
--------------
In order to make Happstack easier to install we have removed as many
dependencies as possible. happstack-data no longer depends on
happstack-util, which makes it easier to install happstack-data or
happstack-state with out the rest of the framework. HSP and
HStringTemplate support has been moved into *optional* happstack-hsp
and happstack-hstringtemplate packages.
New Features
------------
Happstack also has a number of new features including:
- support for Heist templates (http://happstack.com/docs/crashcourse/Templates.html#helloheist
)
- support for Hamlet templates
- improved environment for extracting query string and form values (http://happstack.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-rqdata-monad-still-needed.html
)
- support for recompilation and reloading of templates in a running
server (http://happstack.blogspot.com/2010/10/recompile-your-haskell-based-templates.html
)
- directory browsing when using serveDirectory
And numerous other improvements including enhancements to IxSet, file
locking, and much more.
Bigger, Better Version Number
-----------------------------
We have also upgraded our version numbers! We have decided to call
this release Happstack 6.0 instead of Happstack 0.6. There are two
reasons for this:
1. the amount of changes we are making really do represent a new
major release
2. it will make it easier to comply with the Haskell package version
policy.
Now that Happstack 6 is out, we plan to make more frequent releases.
The new version scheme will allow us to talk about the next major
release (Happstack 7), but still put out changes to Happstack 6 which
change the API (aka, Happstack 6.2, etc).
GHC 7 - mostly
--------------
Happstack mostly works with GHC 7. Due to some compiler bugs, HSP does
not work with GHC 7.0.1. These bugs were reported and are fixed in the
upcoming GHC 7.0.2 release. If you are not using the optional
happstack-hsp package, then GHC 7 is fine. If you are using happstack-
hsp, then you will need to use GHC 6.12, a recent version of GHC from
darcs, or wait until GHC 7.0.2 comes out.
The Future
==========
The current future plan looks like this:
Happstack 7
-----------
The next major release of Happstack will be Happstack 7. The primary
focus of Happstack 7 will be improving happstack-state (also known as
MACID). Big features include:
- sharding support
- a rewrite of IxSet based on kdtrees with much better RAM and CPU
performance
- performance testing to show how awesome MACID is
- much better documentation and examples
- better tools for examining and modifying state in running
applications
There are also a bunch of lower-level API improvements planned which
should make it nicer to use happstack-state.
Happstack 8
-----------
Happstack 8 will finally feature an enumerator-based HTTP backend.
This is a feature we have been hoping to add since January of 2009.
http://code.google.com/p/happstack/issues/detail?id=29
Rather than develop a competing HTTP backend, Happstack will put its
efforts into improving an existing HTTP backend. We currently have our
eye on WAI/warp. However, we will also consider snap and hyena when
the time comes.
It should be noted that the current lazy I/O based backend is not the
relentless nightmare of space leaks that some people might lead you to
believe it is. The current happstack-server can easily handle uploads
and downloads of large or streaming files with out leaks. But,
enumerators *are* nice.
How You can Help
================
You are encouraged to get involved in Happstack. The easiest way to
get involved is to complain about how horrible Happstack is. If you
don't voice your complaints, then we might not know something things
to be fixed.
If you are looking to make code contributions, please feel free to ask
on #happs or the mailing list. There are tasks that are easy for
novices, tasks that are worthy of a Ph.D, and everything in between.
If you want to work, we can certainly find a way to use your talents!
There are also plenty of non-coding related tasks including
documentation, graphic design, user surveys, etc.
You are also encouraged to blog about your Happstack projects!
Thanks!
- jeremy shaw
Jinpu Hu
> The Happstack Crash Course covers a vast majority of the happstack-
> server API. It covers the API in a logical manner and includes many
> downloadable, runnable examples. It is intended to be read start to
> finish, and to also be usable as a reference guide for specific "How
> do I do XXX" questions.
>
> Additionally, the guestbook example has been updated to a cleaner,
> more modern style of Happstack coding. It also has more comments/
> haddock documentation.
>
> Better API
> ----------
>
> During the process of documenting Happstack, many small improvements
> where made to the API. Once you try to document something stupid you
> realize how stupid it is and decided it would be good to fix it first ;)
>
> For example, the Cookie API now makes it more obvious how to create
> session cookies vs persistent cookies. And makes it obvious how to
> expire a cookie.
>
> The functions for looking up values in the query string and require
> body no longer require the use of the RqData monad. You can use the
> look* functions directly in the ServerPart monad.
>
> If you do choose to use RqData, it now has an Applicative instance
> which can accummulate and report lookup errors. (http://happstack.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-rqdata-monad-still-needed.html
> ) There are a bunch of other improvements to request data handling
> Easier Install
> --------------
>
> In order to make Happstack easier to install we have removed as many
> dependencies as possible. happstack-data no longer depends on
> happstack-util, which makes it easier to install happstack-data or
> happstack-state with out the rest of the framework. HSP and
> HStringTemplate support has been moved into *optional* happstack-hsp
> and happstack-hstringtemplate packages.
>
> New Features
> ------------
>
> Happstack also has a number of new features including:
>
> - support for Heist templates (http://happstack.com/docs/crashcourse/Templates.html#helloheist
> )
> - support for Hamlet templates
> - improved environment for extracting query string and form values (http://happstack.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-rqdata-monad-still-needed.html
> )
> - support for recompilation and reloading of templates in a running
Gracjan Polak
Nice!