scodil wrote:
I'll chime in with a "me too". I use Haskell and OpenGL for prototyping scientific visualization software, 3D models and such. Not that I think it couldn't be used for production software, its just that I just don't produce much :)
The library really is fantastic. I don't think it gets enough fanfare. The only other GL API that rivals it is the C API itself. Most other languages provide a shoddy & incomplete interface to that, instead of an idiomatic interpretation of the OpenGL spec. I can't think of a single language, not even python, whose OpenGL bindings come close.
I get the impression (from a inadequate sample of irc logs and list chatter) that many Haskellers see HOpenGL as 'just an OpenGL binding', like it was readline or curses or something. It just plugs a hole in the Haskell/OS interface, and its worth is merely a function of the size and importance of that hole. Instead I advocate, as Claus and others have done, that it's a shining example of how to write a Haskell interface to a well known API.
If you never used C OpenGL and learned GL using Haskell, you might not notice anything special about it. But that's kind of my point, its just so damn good it blends into the background. The only people who notice this, I think, are experienced C OpenGL programmers, and the overlap between them and the Haskell community in general is small I bet. Their voice in that community smaller still.
This probably has little bearing on the issue of whether to keep or drop HOpenGL in the near future, but I think that if 'the community' (or whoever has a say in these things) like the style of HOpenGL, and want to encourage bindings to be written in that style, they should place the library prominently in the pantheon of Haskell libs. Demoting it has the opposite effect.
Anyway, I just wanted to take advantage of a rare opportunity to sing its praise.
I have nothing to add except... what a great post. Thanks for being both enlightening and eloquent. Simon