[Haskell-cafe] Summer of Code idea: Haskell Web Toolkit

[Alejandro Serrano Mena]

My idea would be reusing some of the already-available tools for compiling
Haskell to JS (for example, UHC), and develop with any of them a complete
library for client-side scripting; rather that redevelop a way to compile
Haskell to JS.

I think it's really a pity not being able to use things like what Yesod
provides in a client-side context. And both sides would benefit: they can
share common code for datatypes (as it's done in Google Web Toolkit), and
autogenerate some code for sending or receiving AJAX requests, for example.


2012/3/6 Michael Snoyman <michael at snoyman.com>

> On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Alejandro Serrano Mena
> <trupill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I'm really looking forward to helping in the Summer of Code, if Haskell
> goes
> > into it this year (something I take for granted :). I would like to
> propose
> > an idea for a project, and I'm looking for suggestions about whether it's
> > good, should be improved or it's just unfeasible.
> >
> > My idea is to make a client-side Haskell Web Toolkit, in the spirit of
> > Google Web Toolkit, which would allow to program in Haskell the client
> part
> > of a web application, and would complement the web frameworks already
> > existing for Haskell (such as Yesod and Snap). The point is coming about
> > with a Haskell-ish way to program applications, to reuse all the existing
> > knowledge for our beloved language.
> >
> > I've added more details in a pre-proposal in Google Docs, available
> > in
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FnTNO9uTobDHRTDXWurKns7vGTjeauw0nRhbtt6vavs/edit
> > Tell me if you prefer to see it in other format, but I didn't want to
> > generate a bigger e-mail.
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
>
> I definitely think the idea has merit. In general I'm wary of
> solutions which try to compile down to Javascript[1], and I'm not sure
> if actually providing a full Haskell-to-JS approach is a good idea.
> Another possibility might be a DSL/combinator library for generating
> JS. Though at this point, I wouldn't rule out either approach.
>
> Yesod is currently wrapping up its 1.0 release (almost certainly
> out-the-door by the end of April), and after that our main focus is
> intended to be client-side integration, so we would certainly be happy
> to discuss design ideas and collaborate in general.
>
> Michael
>
> [1] I say "compile down to" to mean nontrivial changes, as opposed to
> something like Coffeescript, which is a fairly simple conversion.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/attachments/20120306/056d752a/attachment.htm>