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

[wren ng thornton]

On 5/18/11 2:25 PM, Tom Murphy wrote:
> I'd give three reasons for disagreeing:
> 1. Developing a complete GUI has been a low priority up until now, but
> now that other, more urgent areas of development are starting to
> thrive, its time has come.
> 2. Yes, having essentially no complete GUI support has suited our
> needs up until now, but these have been the needs of a certain type of
> programmer. IF the community would like to grow, or would like to be
> able to use Haskell at work, I'd say a GUI supporting the above would
> be very valuable.
> 3. Using the web as Haskell's main method of non-command line
> (graphical) deployment seems to lose two of Haskell's most powerful
> features: its type safety, and its speed.

I agree with these disagreements. Web apps have long been touted as a 
replacement for desktop apps. For certain specific kinds of domains 
people have been able to realize them sufficiently well as web apps. But 
I am still of the firm belief that there are numerous domains where 
browser-based UIs are wholly inappropriate. Thus, GUIs (especially 
OS-integrated GUIs) will remain a necessity for the foreseeable future. 
Moreover, for many people, the lack of native GUI support calls into 
question how mature and ready for serious work a language is; so 
developing a solid GUI story can be important publicity work.

Beyond this, I can't say, since I rarely work on tools that require 
graphical interfaces. But I'd love to see a nice Cocoa--Haskell 
bridgework, since that's the kind of GUI I'm most liable to use/need.

-- 
Live well,
~wren