[wxhaskell-users] Haskell newbie - looking for IDE for cross-platform GUI programming involving datagrids

[Stefan S. A. <ste...@gm...>]

Hi -

After doing some work using the executable algebraic specification language
called Maude (in the OBJ3/CafeOBJ family) and playing with Scala, C#, and
the functional array-programming languages J (jsoftware.com) and K/KDB (
kx.com), I'm looking for an IDE to use for real-world cross-platform GUI
programming (mainly database work to start with) - developing on XP and
deploying to Windows, Linux, Mac and maybe eventually some of the mobile
devices. Currently I'm leaning towards Haskell and wxHaskell, and I would
appreciate any opinions on which IDE(s) might be good to use, as well as any
pointers on how to put all the various necessary pieces together and use
them.


(One particular additional GUI requirement I also have is a decent datagrid
control having custom cell editors - a multi-column combo-box control or a
calendar control. Plus "freezable" left-hand column(s) would also be nice. I
rejected gtk2hs because it didn't seem to have any sort of datagrid. I see
that wxWidgets includes the class wxGrid which supports
a wxGridCellChoiceEditor, and I imagine other features could be added to
wxGrid via subclassing.)


Regarding the choice to use Haskell: Haskell seems to be close to the
functional languages that I like. And although benchmarks are to be taken
with a grain of salt, I was pleasantly surprised to find that a functional
language like Haskell can be very fast:

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/

Also Haskell has lots of libraries written for it:

http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/pkg-list.html

<http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/pkg-list.html>By the way,
there's an interesting post comparing languages here:

http://blog.srinivasan.biz/software/if-you-have-to-learn-just-one-programming-language

where Haskell is one of the top choices after Scala. I do like Scala but I
prefer to avoid the JVM.


I've downloaded and installed the 2010.1.0.0 Haskell Platform, wxWidgets
2.8.11, MinGW 5.1.6, and MSys 1.0.11.

So far I've also installed DialogBlocks 4.38 and CodeBlocks 10.05 to do some
initial comparisons.

For what it's worth, I've seen a list (put together by the people from
CodeBlocks I think) comparing several wxWidgets IDEs:

http://wiki.codeblocks.org/index.php?title=Comparison_of_wxSmith_features

And I've heard that DialogBlocks was developed by one of the developers of
wxWidgets.


Regarding Haskell Platform 2010.1.0.0 and wxHaskell on Windows, this post
indicates that some additional steps may be involved:

http://wewantarock.wordpress.com/tag/wxhaskell/


As a beginner with Haskell and wxHaskell, I'm a bit confused right now about
all the various pieces I might need to get started and how to actually use
them. I have the following questions:

1 - Which IDE(s) would people recommend for doing cross-platform GUI
programming using Haskell & wxHaskell?

2 - Where might I find information on how to put all the various pieces
together? For example when creating a project in CodeBlocks, it asks me if
I'll be using wxSmith or wxFormBuilder (or no GUI builder). So I guess I
might also need to install one of these in order to best use CodeBlocks?

3 - What is the process for using an IDE to do cross-platform GUI
programming using Haskell & wxHaskell? I assume I would start by designing
an interface using the IDE and write some code in Haskell. Would this give
me an interface defined in terms of just wxWidgets? Would I have to do
something additional to get the interface to be defined in terms of
wxHaskell?

5 - I hear that some of the IDEs emit something called XRC files, and
according to this link (http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/WxHaskell) wxHaskell
now supports these files. Do I have to create XRC files? If so, what do I do
with them?

4 - The IDEs are often geared towards development using C++. I assume I can
safely ignore the options about C++, but how do I find the options for
building and compiling my code using Haskell and wxHaskell using one of
these IDEs? I see menus in DialogBlocks and CodeBlocks asking me to pick a
C++ compiler. Do I need a C++ compiler in order to use a wxWidgets IDE with
Haskell? Do I need to customize the IDE so that it can access a Haskell
compiler instead of a C++ compiler?

Sorry if this seems really disjointed. As a a novice in the area of using
Haskell for cross-platform GUI programming, I'm a bit overwhelmed now by the
various choices out there for IDEs and the concrete steps involved in
developing and deploying a cross-platform GUI project using wxHaskell. Any
pointers would be greatly appreciated!

- Scott