Boost.Python is for extending Python with C++, or embedding Python in C++. This is especially useful because it allows you to use Python as an extension language for a C++ program. Presumably Boost.Haskell would be for integrating Haskell code with C++, which would of course be useful, but the main use case (an embedded extension language) that draws people to Boost.Python isn't as much of a draw for Haskell because of the compilation phase. On the other hand, I suppose you could always integrate a Haskell interpreter like Hugs, or even go the HsPlugins route and dynamically load a compiled module, but the fit doesn't seem as natural as it does with a latently typed scripting language. There are also technical problems that are hard to overcome. Extending Python is mostly done in C, so a C++ library to add some nice sugar is a good fit. Haskell, OTOH, embeds C programs via its FFI. There doesn't seem to be any way to export functions and value from C++ to Haskell, but instead the C++ code must import from Haskell. All the heavy lifting is done on the Haskell side, so there isn't as much opportunity to write a slick C++ library. This could change if someone made a version of Hugs that can be linked in as a library with a documented C API for evaluating Haskell code and mucking with Haskell values. But I don't think its much of a priority right now :) -- Alan Falloon Alexy Khrabrov wrote:
One of the great strengths of Python is Boost.Python. Practitioners say it's a major advantage of Python over Ruby, for example. So the question is not whether there's a Boost in Haskell -- C++ and Haskell are too different for it to have much meaning -- but whether there's or going to be a Boost.Haskell?
Cheers, Alexy
On Feb 1, 2007, at 5:03 AM, John Ky wrote:
Does the Haskell community have an equivalent to C++ community's Boost project with the aim of writing libraries for the eventual inclusion into Haskell?