[Haskell-cafe] ANN: diagrams 0.2.1, and planned major improvements

[Haroldo Stenger]

simply beautiful

2009/9/24 Brent Yorgey <byorgey at seas.upenn.edu>

> Hi all,
>
> I'm pleased to announce version 0.2.1 of the diagrams library,
> available now on Hackage [1].  This is a minor release which fixes a
> few bugs and adds a few new combinators, most notably a grid layout
> combinator contributed by Ganesh Sittampalam.  For a full list of the
> features new to 0.2.1, see the CHANGES file [2].
>
> The real reason for the release is to get existing new features out
> the door before gearing up for a planned major rewrite of the backend
> to use a constraint-solving layout engine.  This will allow for much
> greater elegance and flexibility, as well as a number of features
> (such as arrows connecting different parts of the diagram) which would
> be difficult or impossible to implement in the current framework.
>
> My ultimate vision is for the diagrams library to become a viable
> alternative to declarative drawing systems such as MetaPost [3] and
> Asymptote [4], with the distinct advantages that it will be
>
>    (1) *purely* declarative, and
>
>    (2) an *embedded* DSL, providing the full power of Haskell and its
>        ecosystem, as opposed to the ad-hoc specialized languages used
>        by MetaPost and Asymptote.
>
> If this sounds exciting to you, I hope you'll join me, either by
> trying out diagrams for your projects and providing feedback, or by
> contributing some code.  If you're interested in helping with the
> rewrite itself, let me know; I also plan to set up a core/contrib
> model like that of xmonad, so there should also be plenty of
> opportunities for contributing independent add-on modules which
> enhance the core functionality.
>
> -Brent
>
> [1] http://hackage.haskell.org/package/diagrams
> [2] http://code.haskell.org/diagrams/CHANGES
> [3] http://www.tug.org/metapost.html
> [4] http://asymptote.sourceforge.net/
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