[Haskell-cafe] Haskell for children? Any experience?

[Benjamin L. Russell]

Chris Smith wrote:
> Manuel,
>
> Wow, that gloss package is really cool, and exactly the sort of thing I
> was looking for.  As I've said before, I don't think I can prevent this
> from becoming about how to write games eventually.  Gloss looks like
> provides a nice way to approach graphics programming in a simple
> functional style, with a clean interface consisting entirely of
> high-level ideas, and which easily switches over to the game interface
> later.  Awesome!

Actually, I've been wishing for a high-level way of creating an 
interactive three-dimensional virtual world in Haskell that doesn't 
require explicit knowledge of linear algebra.  Ideally, I'm looking for 
a Haskell way of creating a functional counterpart to, say, Open Cobalt 
(see http://www.opencobalt.org/) that is high-level-enough not to 
require explicit manipulation of row and column vectors.

One of the main problems, however, is the lack of reflection.  Ideally, 
I would like the project to be able to modify its own framework in real 
time, so that, for example, within the virtual world, users would be 
able to create portals to other virtual worlds, and then write code 
while the project was running to change the configuration without 
restarting the project.  Then users would be able to write code in the 
functional style to change the virtual environment _in situ._

Eventually, the project could be used as the egg for a much larger 
project that would allow users to work, study, shop, pay bills, and 
trade, all within a virtual city.  Users could program in Haskell in a 
virtual classroom, write code in real-time to reconfigure the behavior 
of the classroom, then work on-line (say, by doing translation work) to 
earn a living, then pay rent or online bills without leaving the virtual 
world, and, when bored, form parties or alliances with other avatars to 
complete quests, craft items, or battle mon^H^H^H bugs to earn 
experience points, blurring the borders between work/study and play.

-- Benjamin L. Russell

>
> Thank you so much for pointing it out.
>
> --
> Chris Smith