From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Original-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Received: from mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.104]) by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3CB107EE49 for ; Sat, 14 Sep 2013 05:05:20 +0200 (CEST) Received-SPF: None (mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of jon@ffconsultancy.com) identity=pra; client-ip=212.159.14.18; receiver=mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="jon@ffconsultancy.com"; x-sender="jon@ffconsultancy.com"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: None (mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of jon@ffconsultancy.com) identity=mailfrom; client-ip=212.159.14.18; receiver=mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="jon@ffconsultancy.com"; x-sender="jon@ffconsultancy.com"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: None (mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of postmaster@avasout06.plus.net) identity=helo; client-ip=212.159.14.18; receiver=mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="jon@ffconsultancy.com"; x-sender="postmaster@avasout06.plus.net"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AtsBACvSM1LUnw4Sm2dsb2JhbABbxRCBHxYOAQEBAQEGCxQUKIIlAQEFCAIeEj8MAQMCCREEAQEBHQoHGSMKCQgCBBMLBYd3uWWOJwuBPwcGhBgDjxKeAYFn X-IPAS-Result: AtsBACvSM1LUnw4Sm2dsb2JhbABbxRCBHxYOAQEBAQEGCxQUKIIlAQEFCAIeEj8MAQMCCREEAQEBHQoHGSMKCQgCBBMLBYd3uWWOJwuBPwcGhBgDjxKeAYFn X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.90,902,1371074400"; d="scan'208";a="26813371" Received: from avasout06.plus.net ([212.159.14.18]) by mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 14 Sep 2013 05:05:19 +0200 Received: from XPS ([91.125.250.6]) by avasout06 with smtp id Qr5H1m00309223701r5JGu; Sat, 14 Sep 2013 04:05:18 +0100 X-CM-Score: 0.00 X-CNFS-Analysis: v=2.1 cv=CZIxutbl c=1 sm=1 tr=0 a=rKDLt0SBNjd1Eozd8FTbVw==:117 a=rKDLt0SBNjd1Eozd8FTbVw==:17 a=0Bzu9jTXAAAA:8 a=1Pt96-2uaEoA:10 a=Xub9RBUEA-sA:10 a=Kvk-SOs2Z7YA:10 a=kj9zAlcOel0A:10 a=r2vSxAw-AAAA:8 a=9YQBA6ZTeLgA:10 a=bcwXwY2x55Jyj6_T0S8A:9 a=CjuIK1q_8ugA:10 a=d6ZO2ScF64gA:10 X-AUTH: jdh302:2500 Reply-To: From: "Jon Harrop" To: "'Alain Frisch'" Cc: References: <20130910230928.2d51cd39@atmarama.noip.me> <20130911052437.GA9514@notk.org> <20130911101457.3f756b68@atmarama.noip.me> <20130911181737.GA3764@notk.org> <054201ceaf2a$5a0ece10$0e2c6a30$@ffconsultancy.com> <05b701ceafc6$0dab7950$29026bf0$@ffconsultancy.com> <5231D505.2020909@frisch.fr> In-Reply-To: <5231D505.2020909@frisch.fr> Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 04:05:17 +0100 Organization: Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd. Message-ID: <00d001ceb0f7$3eb62c20$bc228460$@ffconsultancy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 14.0 Thread-Index: AQInBeUdAXSiYK4NZW7ZftXe1xVN4QJYzIS+AlTyKkQCSxgGDgH7H0XEAdTRHoYBtKr8ywFDVnX/ATOYrduYm6w1gA== Content-Language: en-gb Subject: RE: [Caml-list] OCaml vs Ada and/or GUI options More the tooling and documentation than the language although there is some overlap. The OCaml language is good for expressing GUI and graphical programs. Polymorphic variants are particularly useful. I'd say the main challenges are: 1. API Exploration: OCamlBrowser is a great little tool but it is much slower to use to explore a big API (like a GUI toolkit's API) than Intellisense. 2. Libraries: OCaml has mature bindings to GTK but GTK has very limited support for modern GUI features. For example, vector graphics are ubiquitous in modern GUIs and GTK punts this to Cairo which comparable to using the Acorn DRAW file format from BBC BASIC in 1987 (26 years ago) but without the high-level memory safety that BBC BASIC offered. 3. Interoperability: both GTK and Qt punt more advanced (e.g. 3D) vector graphics to OpenGL but OCaml doesn't have any up-to-date OpenGL bindings. LablGL is mature but I don't think its bindings to GLU were ever finished and, of course, it only supports OpenGL circa the turn of the millenium. Ultimately, the problem is that interoperability is hard with OCaml. 4. Samples: There are relatively few OCaml GUI samples out there. With tablets reinventing user interface designs, the time is ripe for a new GUI toolkit, e.g. written in OCaml using OpenGL ES 2.0... Cheers, Jon. -----Original Message----- From: Alain Frisch [mailto:alain@frisch.fr] Sent: 12 September 2013 15:52 To: jon@ffconsultancy.com Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] OCaml vs Ada and/or GUI options On 09/12/2013 04:40 PM, Jon Harrop wrote: > OCaml is nowhere near > having competitive support for basic features required for modern GUI > programming Hi Jon! Could you more specific? Are you referring to language features? -- Alain