HOpenAL and Haskore

[Sven Panne]

Am Donnerstag, 24. August 2006 11:29 schrieb Juan Rodríguez Hortalá:
> [...]
> And the later is about HOpenAL. Some information is found in
> http://www.haskell.org/HOpenGL/newAPI/index.html , on the entry for
> Sound, but I wonder if there is some tutorial or additional
> documentation anywhere. [...]

Once again, I have to admit that I should write more documentation for my 
packages... :-( Alas, I don't know about any tutorials for the OpenAL/ALUT 
binding, but at least Google can help you to find some for OpenGL/GLUT, which 
is admittedly not very helpful when you try to do some sound programming. The 
general strategy for all those packages is:

 * The underlying C APIs are quite large, so writing detailed documentation 
and tutorials is a herculean task. Therefore it is mandatory to be able to 
re-use existing material for the Haskell bindings.

 * The user of the packages is expected to know the C APIs.

 * The module structure and consequently the Haddock documentation is 
structured very similar to the corresponding specification documents. So when 
you see e.g. 
http://www.haskell.org/HOpenGL/newAPI/OpenAL/Sound-OpenAL-AL-Listener.html 
(updated a few minutes ago) and have a look at the OpenAL specification (sec. 
4.1 and sec. 4.2 in this case), you should have no problems using the stuff, 
even when only reading the synopsis. At least that's the plan... ;-) 
Currently the GLUT and OpenAL packages have quite extensive Haddock 
documentation, the OpenGL package only partly, and the ALUT package 
practically none.

 * ALUT (and GLUT) come with some well-known examples to get you started: 
http://darcs.haskell.org/packages/ALUT/examples/

Of course all this is not a substitue for a nice tutorial, but the Haskell 
wiki would be a great place for this. (<= hint ;-) For further questions, the 
libraries mailing list might be a better place.

Cheers,
   S.