[GUI] Towards a low level specification?

[Vincenzo Ciancia]

On Thu, 20 Mar 2003 10:43:47 +0000
Axel Simon <A.Simon@ukc.ac.uk> wrote:

> 
>   Ok, let me try to recover my argument: Having a mid-level API should
>   enable the user to write applications concisely. Thus if a) passing
>   a list of attributes to the constructor makes code shorter and b) we
>   can agree on a design where advantages are clear and dominate, we
>   should have it in CGA.
> 

We will have it in CGA, be sure that I won't surrender until we have a
very good mid-level approach. Just what I want to say is: let's do a
first level of implementation, wich is the one bound to FFI, and care of
the syntax, and the state handling, only later, when we will have some
working widget. 

I absolutely don't want the "standard haskell GUI" to look like an
imperative library, or an imperative subset to be declared "complete"
with everybody abandoning the project. 

We will surely use haskell great expressive power. Just, because
choosing the right syntax (and if to use or not to use type classes,
etc) requires much more work than just building the fundamentals, I
propose to have a milestone, which is having a pure "assembly-like" (if
you pass the term) implementation. Then, we'll focus on the mid-level,
wich, I repeat, *has* to be done (in my opinion) before declaring the
CGA in an alpha state.

I need this incremental approach to have time to test various ways to
handle state and initialization, maybe others have clearer ideas and
want to work on that immediately, so I call for votes.

Vincenzo