On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, Manuel M. T. Chakravarty wrote:

[very helpful explanation cut, thanks Manuel]

> There is absolutely no reason why a Haggis-like or
> FranTk-like framework couldn't be build on top of Gtk+HS.
> (In fact, there is somebody working on a Haggis-clone for
> Gtk+HS.)  From the outset, the idea was to provide with
> Gtk+HS a Haskell binding for GTK+ that keeps as close to the
> C API as possible while embedding the interface nicely in
> Haskell's type system - as a consequence, you get a C API in
> Haskell, which requires the use of imperative Haskell.  (And
> Sven has outlined how to use the `IORef's in a GUI context.)
> 
> On top of this basic binding, I would like to see some more
> declarative framework(s) for implementing GUIs, but as this
> is still a research issue, I think it is very important to
> keep these two layers of abstraction cleanly separated (this
> is in addition to the obvious software engineering benefits
> of separating the two layers).  The separation should also
> make it easier to maybe at some point utilise a GUI builder
> like Glade in conjunction with Gtk+HS.
> 

It makes perfect sense to do a simple binding first then write your
higher-level code in Haskell; I'm also glad to hear that you are keeping
Glade in mind. Sounds excellent.

Havoc