Announcing Pan#, version 0.1

[John Peterson]

          -------------------------------------------
                  Announcing Pan#, Version 0.1
          -------------------------------------------

Pan is a language of interactive, functional images developed by Conal
Elliott, Oege de Moor, and Sigbjorn Finne.  We have built a new front
and back end for the original Pan compiler to create Pan#, a stand
alone system that does not require any other Haskell compiler.  Pan#
uses the Microsoft .NET system to compile and run the generated
programs.

Pan# contains its own interpreter for a small, Haskell-like language.
We have simplified and extended the Haskell language somewhat but
retains the core semantic basis of Haskell.  

This release is part of a larger effort to use functional languages
and programming language principles to design new languages for
educational use (http://haskell.org/edsl).  Pan# has been used as a
mathematical visualization language and we have developed a number of
high school algebra lessons that use Pan# to create interactive
visualizations which illustrate mathematical principles.

Try out Pan# if you're interested in functional graphics or would like
a simple language that demonstrates the power of functional
programming in a new and interesting way.  

This is a preliminary release - it has not been extensively tested and 
some aspects of the system have not been implemented or are in poor 
shape. 

Pan# is easy to install and use.  You can get Pan# at
http://haskell.org/edsl/pansharp.html

Requirements:

   - Windows 2000 or XP
   - The .NET framework (available through Microsoft Update)

We would like to thank Microsoft Research for thier support of this
project. 

John Peterson
Yale Haskell Project