[Haskell-cafe] JavaScript in a browser as a Windows GUI?

[Michael Snoyman]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Jeremy Shaw <jeremy at n-heptane.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Andrew Coppin
> <andrewcoppin at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>> My understanding is that Happstack is a very large, powerful and complex
>> framework for writing Haskell web applications. I was under the impression
>> that you use it by statically linking the HTTP server and the actual
>> application together, rather than Happstack providing a standard CGI
>> interface that an external application can then use.
>
> powerful - yes! large and complex -- not so much. Though, the lower
> bound on complexity is limited by the fundamental complexity of the
> web itself.
>
> But, you are correct that happstack does not currently have support
> for running CGI executables. I imagine that you could write a CGI
> handler (with out modifying the core code) in a few hours (maybe
> less). Mostly just a matter of turning the values in the Request type
> into a environment variables, and calling the executable?
>
> That said, I am not sure why you want CGI. CGI is only simple in the
> sense that it doesn't do anything for you. But that means you have to
> handle all the complexity yourself. Perhaps it would be easier to just
> learn happstack. It is much better documented now than it was a few
> years ago (and some aspects have been simplified). And happstack-state
> and happstack-server are now completely independent.
>
> Here is a nice tutorial, http://happstack.com/docs/crashcourse/index.html
> The darcs version (which will be released soon) has much better
> haddock documentation as well. I would recommend the darcs version for
> any new development.

Shouldn't it be possible to plug in the happstack-wai experimental
port with Network.Wai.Handler.CGI and then both get the power of
Happstack *and* easy CGI support? And then later on, when ready to
move past CGI it will be easy to move to a better deployment option.

Michael