[Haskell-cafe] Mobile app development?

[Kristopher Micinski]

I don't believe that was really the point of the C compiler, and I'd
suspect you'd have a hard time with the runtime.

By the way, the Android APIs aren't really meant to be used by native
code: the only real use for native code in Android is GPU code and
math code (think games and DSP-type programs).

Wrapping the libraries for use by native code is *possible*, but
getting it right will be very hard: it's not like you're going to have
a simple C library which lets you touch Android's `View` hierarchy,
for example.

On top of that, you'd also want to have a "true" functional interface
to Android's API: you probably don't want to just use the Java API
verbatim.

What was your implementation plan for doing this, should you get a
runtime up for Haskell code?  I'd guess that you can pretty easily get
a Haskell program to *run* on the device from the device's command
line.  But I'd also guess that getting it to play well with Android
will be a *lot* of work.

I don't really have the time or GHC internals experience to do this,
but if someone wanted help on it, I'd be interested.

The web interface idea is okay, but obviously you're punting on speed
if you do that.  You might look into the Boot2Gecko project at
Mozilla, it has similar aspirations.

Kris

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Andrew Pennebaker
<andrew.pennebaker at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can we un-deprecate GHC's ability to compile to C code? C may be the best
> option to bridge to mobile, as Android, iOS, and Windows RT do support C/C++
> apps.
>
> On Jan 22, 2013 2:14 PM, "Dan Choi" <dhchoi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> What about the option of using Haskell's Parsec or AttoParsec to implement
>> a Haskell-ish language that compiles down not to machine code but to
>> Objective C or Android Java? Like how CoffeeScript compiles down to
>> JavaScript.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, January 19, 2013 1:58:03 PM UTC-5, Casey Hawthorne wrote:
>>>
>>> You would need native compilers for all the platforms and/or virtual
>>> machine technology.
>>>
>>> Might be easier to have the browser connect to a Haskell app.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 10:42 AM, Andrew Pennebaker
>>> <andrew.p... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > There are currently very few options, especially free and open source
>>> > options, when it comes to developing cross-platform mobile
>>> > applications.
>>> > It's basically web apps with JavaScript, or C++. If Haskell supported
>>> > app
>>> > development on Android, iOS, and Windows RT, that alone would bring in
>>> > more
>>> > developers.
>>> >
>>> > Similarly, there are very few languages for mobile development that
>>> > take
>>> > advantage of multiple cores and multiple CPUs. Haskell's `parmap` is an
>>> > amazing selling point. Can we please prioritize mobile support? I'd
>>> > much
>>> > rather write everything in ML than PhoneGap.
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Cheers,
>>> >
>>> > Andrew Pennebaker
>>> > www.yellosoft.us
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Haskell-Cafe mailing list
>>> > Haskel... at haskell.org
>>> > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
>>> Regards,
>>> KC
>>>
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>
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