Remote Procedure Calls are expensive. This paper demonstrates how to reduce the cost of calling remote procedures from Haskell by using the remote monad design pattern, which amortizes the cost of remote calls. This gives the Haskell community access to remote capabilities that are not directly supported, at a surprisingly inexpensive cost. We explore the remote monad design pattern through six models of remote execution patterns, using a simulated Internet of Things toaster as a running example. We consider the expressiveness and optimizations enabled by each remote execution model, and assess the feasibility of our approach. We then present a full-scale case study: a Haskell library that provides a Foreign Function Interface to the JavaScript Canvas API. Finally, we discuss existing instances of the remote monad design pattern found in Haskell libraries.
Embedded Domain Specific Languages are a powerful tool for developing customized languages to fit specific problem domains. Shallow EDSLs allow a programmer to program using many of the features of a host language and its syntax, but sacrifice performance. Deep EDSLs provide better performance and flexibility, through the ability to manipulate the abstract syntax tree of the DSL program, but sacrifice syntactical similarity to the host language. Using Haskino, an EDSL designed for small embedded systems based on the Arduino line of microcontrollers, and a compiler plugin for the Haskell GHC compiler, we show a method for combining the best aspects of shallow and deep EDSLs. The programmer is able to write in the shallow EDSL, and have it automatically transformed into the deep EDSL. This allows the EDSL user to benefit from powerful aspects of the host language, Haskell, while meeting the demanding resource constraints of the small embedded processing environment.
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