Jurriën Stutterheim:
A few weeks ago I set out to build a GUI app using wxHaskell. Long story short, we ditched the entire idea of a desktop GUI and went for a web application instead, because it was easier to develop a front-end for it and it was easier to style it. So here's my (perhaps slightly provoking) question: do we need to care at all about good GUI toolkits being available? Web applications, especially with an HTML 5 front-end, have become increasingly more powerful. If we can also find a good, standardized way to generate JS from our Haskell code, we're pretty much all set.
For cross-platform apps, I have to agree. The effort required to build and maintain a cross-platform GUI toolkit is hard to justify given HTML 5 and related technologies. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to develop native applications (especially on the Mac with its user-base spoiled by high-end UX). Luckily, the choice of toolkit is trivial in this case. For Mac OS, we need a Haskell-Cocoa binding. I don't think there are any serious technical obstacles to develop one. Somebody would just have to spend the time and effort to write one. Manuel
On 18 May, 2011, at 08:29 , Tom Murphy wrote:
I still haven't found any way to do GUIs or interactive graphics in Haskell on a Mac that isn't plagued one or more of the following serious problems:
* Incompatible with ghci, e.g., fails to make a window frame or kills the process the second time one opens a top-level window, * Goes through the X server, and so doesn't look or act like a Mac app, * Doesn't support OpenGL.
If there doesn't currently exist something without these handicaps, that's a serious problem for the use of Haskell for developing end-user software. If we as a community want to be able to develop software for end-users (i.e. people who'll be thrown off by gtk widgets or x11 windows)*, then it would be a very good idea to focus our energies on one or two promising pre-existing libraries, and hammer them into completion. A roadmap for this could be worked on at Hac Phi?
Just my 2¢, Tom
*This, of course, would NOT be avoiding success at all costs. :)
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