Haskell to Javascript compilers?

Question

I've recently came across ghcjs haskell-to-javascript compiler, but I am not sure how "ready" it is. It seems to have little activity over the last year.

Is there an equivalent to GWT in Haskell?

Also, more of a discussion question:do you think there will be a gwt haskell equivalent? Why or why not?

I just came across this when searching for ghcjs. There is a newer repo: github.com/ghcjs/ghcjs — Nathan
– Nathan, Commented Jun 27, 2012 at 12:52
See also What is the most production-level Haskell to JavaScript compiler, to write code running in the browser? — Bergi
– Bergi, Commented Feb 14, 2020 at 0:52

S.L. Barth is on codidact.com · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-19 16:45:34Z

9

There are several such compilers which can be used right away.

Fay (formerly at http://fay-lang.org/, now on https://github.com/faylang/fay) The most popular and the most developed Haskell -> JS compiler. AFAIU, it implements Haskell from scratch and compiles it to JavaScript. It doesn't implement many of GHC's features, especially language extensions.
Haste (https://github.com/valderman/haste-compiler) It uses the backend of GHC to compile to javascript. As a result you can use it to compile extension containing code.

edited Jul 19, 2015 at 16:45

S.L. Barth is on codidact.com

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answered Feb 16, 2013 at 20:53

Konstantin Solomatov

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Joachim Breitner Over a year ago

I have made a very brief comparision of both.

ehird · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-09 19:24:05Z

7

Ji seems relevant, although it doesn't do any Haskell-to-JS compilation; it lets a Haskell server control a browser connected to it via AJAX.

It seems like UHC supports compiling to JavaScript and has some libraries along those lines, but I don't know what UHC's compatibility with GHC extensions is like, or how mature the support is.

I'm not convinced compiling full Haskell to JavaScript is a productive route; the overhead of implementing the likes of lazy evaluation on top of a high-level language is likely to be significant, and all the attempts so far (I haven't checked out UHC's generated code) seem to produce rather huge JavaScript (admittedly, HTTP compression mitigates this).

I don't think ghcjs is being actively developed, but it might be more stable than UHC's support. Yhc's support seems to be the furthest so far, but unfortunately Yhc is a dead project.

answered Jan 9, 2012 at 19:24

ehird

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4 Comments

Andriy Drozdyuk Over a year ago

Wow, that is amazing! Ji, that is. It would be extremely wicked if there was a templating engine in there, and some kind of url routing. How in the world does it "control" the browser? I thought the only way was through AJAX!

ehird Over a year ago

@drozzy: Via AJAX, like I said :)

Andriy Drozdyuk Over a year ago

Oh, I just saw the little js file hidden in there! Haha, clever.

Joachim Breitner Over a year ago

GHCJS is actively maintained at the moment.

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