Re: [Caml-list] Re: GUI for OCaml

[David Thomas <david_hd@yahoo.com>]

--- David MENTRE <david.mentre@gmail.com> wrote:

> > I would prefer a GUI programming language (similar
> > to TeX for word processing). This might be easier 
> > to develop, can either be static (the widget build

> > at compile time) or dynamic, and most of all, it
is
> > easier to modify an existing GUI.
> 
> I'm not fond of yet another Domain Specific Language
> (DSL), except if it brings clear advantages (of
which
> I'm not yet convinced).

I quite like the notion of a DSL for GUIs, presuming
that it (1) makes simple things simple, with
reasonable defaults for each platform and few if any
unpleasant surprises; (2) keeps complicated things
possible - we shouldn't be sacrificing flexibility;
and (3) is reasonably orthogonal - if the code looks
similar, the layout produced should look similar, with
only those changes in the gui actually reflected by
changes in the code.

One additional advantage this has is that it allows
GUI work to be done by the people who are good at
designing GUI's, rather than those that know the
particular system being worked with, without producing
a lot of icky code. 

> BTW, some research has been done one using
functional
> style to program GUI (in Haskell??). We should at 
> least have a look on it.

That's a good point.  I've spent way too long looking
at OO examples of GUIs.  What does a functional GUI
framework look like?


		
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