[Haskell-cafe] Status of Haskell + Mac + GUIs & graphics

[Manuel M T Chakravarty]

Jurriën Stutterheim:
> A few weeks ago I set out to build a GUI app using wxHaskell. Long story short, we ditched the entire idea of a desktop GUI and went for a web application instead, because it was easier to develop a front-end for it and it was easier to style it.
> So here's my (perhaps slightly provoking) question: do we need to care at all about good GUI toolkits being available? Web applications, especially with an HTML 5 front-end, have become increasingly more powerful. If we can also find a good, standardized way to generate JS from our Haskell code, we're pretty much all set.

For cross-platform apps, I have to agree.  The effort required to build and maintain a cross-platform GUI toolkit is hard to justify given HTML 5 and related technologies.

Nevertheless, there are good reasons to develop native applications (especially on the Mac with its user-base spoiled by high-end UX).  Luckily, the choice of toolkit is trivial in this case.  For Mac OS, we need a Haskell-Cocoa binding.  I don't think there are any serious technical obstacles to develop one.  Somebody would just have to spend the time and effort to write one.

Manuel

> On 18 May, 2011, at 08:29 , Tom Murphy wrote:
> 
>>> I still haven't found any way to do GUIs or interactive graphics in Haskell
>>> on a Mac that isn't plagued one or more of the following serious problems:
>>> 
>>> * Incompatible with ghci, e.g., fails to make a window frame or kills the
>>> process the second time one opens a top-level window,
>>> * Goes through the X server, and so doesn't look or act like a Mac app,
>>> * Doesn't support OpenGL.
>>> 
>> 
>>    If there doesn't currently exist something without these
>> handicaps, that's a serious problem for the use of Haskell for
>> developing end-user software.
>>    If we as a community want to be able to develop software for
>> end-users (i.e. people who'll be thrown off by gtk widgets or x11
>> windows)*, then it would be a very good idea to focus our energies on
>> one or two promising pre-existing libraries, and hammer them into
>> completion. A roadmap for this could be worked on at Hac Phi?
>> 
>> Just my 2¢,
>> Tom
>> 
>> *This, of course, would NOT be avoiding success at all costs. :)
>> 
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