[Haskell-cafe] EclipseFP (Haskell IDE) 0.9.1 released

[Duncan Coutts]

On Wed, 2006-02-01 at 13:21 +0000, Graham Klyne wrote:
> Thiago Arrais wrote:
> > EclipseFP 0.9.1 has been released since last Friday. It is an
> > open-source development environment for Haskell code.
> > 
> > EclipseFP integrates GHC with an Haskell-aware code editor and also
> > supports quick file browsing through an outline view, automatic
> > building/compiling and quick one-button code execution. Downloads and
> > more information are available on the project home page
> > 
> > http://eclipsefp.sourceforge.net/
> > 
> > We are open for comments and general discussion. Actually we would
> > really appreciate comments from both newbie and veteran Haskell
> > programmers. This is open-source development and everyone on the
> > Haskell community is welcome to participate.
> 
> More of a meta-comment than a comment...
> 
> [I should say that I haven't yet actually tried this software, though I'd like
> to do so when I get some time.]
> 
> One of the features of Haskell that I like is that it doesn't require lots of
> IDE support to write complex programs... the compact syntax and clean separation
> of concerns that can be achieved make it iasy enough to program using nothing
> more than a regular text editor, and no long wait for the development
> environment to start up.  I can imagine programming Haskell on a palm-top device.

Indeed, this is probably why there has not been so much demand for an
IDE for Haskell as there is for other languages. It's not so hard coding
in Haskell that we really need lots of tool support.

Our motivation in starting the hIDE project (not the same as this
EclipseFP) is not to create new tools but to tie existing tools together
to make the way we program now that bit quicker. We're not trying to tie
you down with auto-generated code or non-standard build tools.

Apart from the basics of an editor with accurate syntax highlighting we
can get integrated syntax and type errors. We can automate building with
cabal. We can get jump to definition, jump to documentation. Such an IDE
would also be ideal to plug in existing refactoring and debugging tools.

Then there is the fact that not all Haskell programmers are comfortable
with editors like emacs or vim.

Fortunately using an IDE is optional.

Duncan