Re: [Haskell-cafe] Summer of Code idea: Haskell Web Toolkit

My issue isn't that you'd need to develop a new set of tools. I just think that using a library approach would allow us to generate more comprehensible code. Hopefully, we could still reuse datatypes, and do lots of other fun stuff. For example, if we used aeson's ToJSON/FromJSON instances for serialization, and some kind of lens library in place of normal record selectors, there's no reason why would couldn't automatically convert: personName person to person.name I know I'm saying a lot of vague stuff here, simply because I haven't had a chance to really solidify my ideas on how to move forward on it. But I'm certainly not ruling out any possibilities at this point, simply stating a preference to avoid a full-blown Haskell-to-JS solution. Michael On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 12:10 AM, Alejandro Serrano Mena wrote:

My idea would be reusing some of the already-available tools for compiling Haskell to JS (for example, UHC), and develop with any of them a complete library for client-side scripting; rather that redevelop a way to compile Haskell to JS.

I think it's really a pity not being able to use things like what Yesod provides in a client-side context. And both sides would benefit: they can share common code for datatypes (as it's done in Google Web Toolkit), and autogenerate some code for sending or receiving AJAX requests, for example.

2012/3/6 Michael Snoyman

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On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Alejandro Serrano Mena wrote:

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Hi, I'm really looking forward to helping in the Summer of Code, if Haskell goes into it this year (something I take for granted :). I would like to propose an idea for a project, and I'm looking for suggestions about whether it's good, should be improved or it's just unfeasible.

My idea is to make a client-side Haskell Web Toolkit, in the spirit of Google Web Toolkit, which would allow to program in Haskell the client part of a web application, and would complement the web frameworks already existing for Haskell (such as Yesod and Snap). The point is coming about with a Haskell-ish way to program applications, to reuse all the existing knowledge for our beloved language.

I've added more details in a pre-proposal in Google Docs, available

in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FnTNO9uTobDHRTDXWurKns7vGTjeauw0nRhbtt6v... Tell me if you prefer to see it in other format, but I didn't want to generate a bigger e-mail.

Thanks in advance.

I definitely think the idea has merit. In general I'm wary of solutions which try to compile down to Javascript[1], and I'm not sure if actually providing a full Haskell-to-JS approach is a good idea. Another possibility might be a DSL/combinator library for generating JS. Though at this point, I wouldn't rule out either approach.

Yesod is currently wrapping up its 1.0 release (almost certainly out-the-door by the end of April), and after that our main focus is intended to be client-side integration, so we would certainly be happy to discuss design ideas and collaborate in general.

Michael

[1] I say "compile down to" to mean nontrivial changes, as opposed to something like Coffeescript, which is a fairly simple conversion.