--- Simon Peyton-Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > | going to stop gtk+hs because of this". So it seems > we are all > | waiting for the critical user mass that makes our > own beloved > | GUI library (binding) the standard GUI library. > For the sake > | of Haskell, we can only hope that this will > actually happen > | one day. A sad side-effects of this is that most > of us GUI > | developers waste a tremendous amount of time. A > paper is just > | not worth the effort we put in writing the code. > > I don't think we are waiting for critical user mass. > We're waiting for > critical > *designer/developer* mass! > > Before Haskell existed, there were half a dozen > not-very-good lazy > functional languages, roughly one for each research > group. Haskell was > born out of the realisation that our efforts were > fragmented and > duplicated by this language diversity. Perhaps the > situation with GUIs > today is similar. > > What is necessary is for those who are enthusiastic > about developing GUI > technology to get together and hammer out a common > design; and then > co-ooperate in implementing and supporting it. The > hard bit is for > everyone to compromise enough to agree a common > design. For that to be > feasible you either need a fair consensus on the > broad outlines, or > enough frustration with the costs of diversity that > everyone is prepared > to make substantial compromises. I sense that the > latter condition may > hold. I'm not sure about whether there's a > consensus on what a GUI > library should look like to the programmer, but at > least the current > diversity means that there are quite a few > more-or-less worked-out > designs to serve as concrete starting points. > > Speaking as a potential user of such a library, I > would absolutely love > to have a Haskell GUI library that > was available in some form on each major platform > was supported by a bunch of people, so I could have > some confidence in its continued existence > Its exact capabilities are less important: (a) I'd > adapt my program to > fit what was available, and (b) I'm sure it would > evolve in response to > user feedback. I'd accept compromises in > functionality to gain > portability; it'd be OK to have > some platform-specific sexy bits. Worse is better. > > > As Manuel says, this process is already under way: > the GUI task force. > > http://haskell.org/communities/11-2001/html/report.html#sect4.3.1 > But not much is happening on [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Well, nothing actually. > Most of the 63 people subscribed to the list are > (like me) lurkers. > But I bet that a small subset are knowledgeable > enough and motivated > enough to do the job. > > My main purpose, in writing this over-long message, > is to say again what > a big service to the community it would be to agree > a common design and > to implement it. > > > Simon
I am completely agree. The development of the ObjectIO and HToolkit was very interesting to me because this allows me to compare GTK and Win32. I understand that independently of the external differences of these API-s they have mostly similar features. The main differences I found are: * The GTK cannot draw rotated text and rotated elipses. This depend on restrictions imposed from X server. * The Win32 backed lack powerful text formating features like these given from PANGO. * The Font families given in the GTK and Win32 are rather different. The font management are still similar on each platform. Probably there are also other differences but I hope that they are not so important. I don`t have any expirience with Mac platform and don't know how different is it. I expect to hear other opinions in [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list. Krasimir __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
