eagleflo

Haskell web frameworks—first impressions

I'm currently exploring Haskell and how suitable it would be for web development. I've been toying around with Haskell a little previously, but I have absolutely no idea of what to expect when it comes to web frameworks in Haskell. I'm currently looking at two alternatives: [Snap][snap] and [Yesod][yesod]. I thought it might be useful to record my first impressions and observations as I experience them. Perhaps material for a future blog post…

Installation

I'm installing Snap version 0.4.1 and Yesod version 0.8 on two machines running Mac OS X 10.6.7, Xcode 4.0.2, GHC 7.0.3 (trying both 32 and 64-bit versions) and Haskell Platform 2011.2.0.1.

I was happy to note that both of the frameworks are available from cabal. That means installation should be easy, right? Well…

eagleflo

~/ $ cabal update
Downloading the latest package list from hackage.haskell.org
~/ $ cabal install snap
Resolving dependencies...
Downloading MonadCatchIO-mtl-0.3.0.2...
Configuring MonadCatchIO-mtl-0.3.0.2...
Preprocessing library MonadCatchIO-mtl-0.3.0.2...
Building MonadCatchIO-mtl-0.3.0.2...
[1 of 1] Compiling Control.Monad.CatchIO ( Control/Monad/CatchIO.hs, dist/build/Control/Monad/CatchIO.o )

eagleflo

Aku-Kotkavuos-iMac:gorb aku$ macrake
(in /Users/aku/Dropbox/work/gorb)
Loaded suite /Library/Frameworks/MacRuby.framework/Versions/0.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.2/rake/rake_test_loader
Started
...unknown: warning: instance variable @board not initialized
E.EE.E..E..E..Eunknown: warning: instance variable @board not initialized
EEEEE.E...E
Finished in 0.963351 seconds.

  1) Error: