scott wrote:

> I heard Haskell has OpenGL capability, how easy is that to get running - 
> then we might be talking :-)

Heh, OK, it's just taken me the entire morning to figure this out. 
(Documented? What do you mean documented? Why would it be documented??)

First: The Haskell Platform includes OpenGL out-of-the-box, so it should 
Just Work(tm).

Second: The documentation for OpenGL is missing, which made me spend 20 
minutes trying to figure out why it wasn't there. Querying the package 
list confirms that OpenGL actually *is* there, it's only the 
documentation that's missing. (Thanks, guys...)

Third: I compiled a simple OpenGL program, and it crashed with "cannot 
find glut32.dll". I don't know if that's because I don't have a 3D card 
on this machine or what. Anyway, it took a while to fix it! YMMV.

Start with this:

module Main where

import Graphics.Rendering.OpenGL
import Graphics.UI.GLUT

myPoints :: [(GLfloat,GLfloat,GLfloat)]
myPoints = map (\k -> (sin(2*pi*k/12),cos(2*pi*k/12),0.0)) [1..12]

main = do
   (progname, _) <- getArgsAndInitialize
   createWindow "Hello World"
   displayCallback $= display
   mainLoop

display = do
   clear [ColorBuffer]
   renderPrimitive Points $ mapM_ (\(x, y, z)->vertex$Vertex3 x y z) 
myPoints
   flush

Save that lot as Test.hs or something. Then execute

   ghc --make Test

That should generate Test.exe. Now run it.

If it whines about not finding glut32.dll, go here:

   http://www.transmissionzero.co.uk/software/freeglut-devel/

Download the "FreeGLUT MinGW" package, and unpack glut32.dll from it. 
(You can ignore all the other files; you only need the DLL.) Drop the 
DLL into your search path or just into the same folder as Test.exe, and 
then try and run it.

If it works, you should get a black window with some white dots.

Assuming all of that works, you now just need to learn the whole Haskell 
programming language, including how to do I/O, and learn the OpenGL 
binding, and then you can do stuff. ;-)

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go file a bunch of tickets 
with the bugtracker. :-P

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