[Haskell-cafe] Re: libraries [was GUI haters]

Heinrich Apfelmus apfelmus at quantentunnel.de
Sat Apr 3 03:26:28 EDT 2010


Michael Vanier wrote:
> aditya siram wrote:
>> Yes Haskell is not strong on the GUI end of things but have you
>> considered turning your desktop app into a web app? I've done this
>> for a few things and really enjoyed the process. Haskell's STM is
>> what makes this so nice.
>
> This is a great idea!  IMO this is also one of the main ways that
> GUI-based apps are likely to evolve into in the future.  Cross-platform
> GUIs are a pain in the butt in _any_ language (possibly excluding full
> language platforms like Java/.NET, and I'll bet even those were a
> nightmare for the original implementors).

This is a bad idea! :) As a long term Mac user, I have a strong dislike
for web applications that try to be desktop applications. Sagemath is
probably an example in point. Not only are the well-designed standard
GUI elements thrown out of the window (the menu bar, it belongs at the
top), it's also sluggish to navigate between pages, doesn't support drag
& drop from other applications and most importantly, doesn't play nice
 with local files.

>From the programmers point of view, I don't want to code my GUI in
Javascript either, I want to do it in Haskell.


Regards,
Heinrich Apfelmus

--
http://apfelmus.nfshost.com







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